Origins
by Commander
Summary: Finally, let the truth be known about where the Warners really came from! Updated March '05...Now newly edited...THE DIRECTOR'S CUT!
1. The Sign Up Sheet

(Author's Note:

Hi, me again.

What is this, you ask? Why, it's the director's cut of _Origins! _Yes, many of the blemishes have been taken out, and the whole experience is now a more enjoyable one. So sit back and enjoy the show!

Okay, really, it's been four years since I wrote this baby. I put a _lot _of work into it, back when I was just a wide-eyed fourteen-year-old. However… my writing style has improved. Greatly. I'm not saying it's fantastic now, by no means, but still, I will tell you truthfully that when I read the original version of this, I felt like I had to throw up. I might have left it just sit and rot, but this, along with _A Fish Called Wanda_, are my two most popular fanfics. The two that I'm recognized as the writer of. And I felt downright embarrassed to be associated with the former version of Origins.

So, I did some heavy-duty editing to this puppy. I fixed grammatical errors, I changed things that sounded awkward, I added some things for clarity, and I took out some things that were irrelevant. The finished product is more clear, flows better, and has more funny "Animaniacal" moments, while still being the drama—although not as quite as sappy as it used to be—that I originally intended.

For those of you here for the first time, I hope you like it. And for those of you coming back for a second or third helping, then… thank you very, very much. Fans like you are the reason that I keep writing and get inspiration.

By the way, the two original authors notes (at chapters 10 and 13) were left in for posterity's sake.

Enjoy!)

"Yakko! Wakko! Wake up!"

Nine-year-old Yakko groaned in restless annoyance, but reluctantly opened his eyes. His four—no wait, it was five now—year old sister was standing over him, joy and ecstasy shining from her face.

"Yes Dot," said Yakko, still half-asleep. "I know it's your birthday."

"It's not just that!" cried Dot. She turned to glare at her seven-year-old brother Wakko. He looked dead. Wakko always looked dead when he slept.

"WAKE UP!" she screeched, kicking him in the side.

"I'm up, I'm up," Wakko said quickly, standing up and rubbing sleep out of his eyes discreetly.

"Guess what I found?" said Dot excitedly.

"A paddle boat?" asked Yakko.

"A crazy bald man who called you 'Chumba'?" asked Wakko.

"No," said Dot, trying unsuccessfully to hide her giggles. "I found a sign up sheet for a talent contest today. Third place gets five dollars, second place gets ten dollars, and first place gets…"

"What?" cried her brothers.

Dot grinned at their suspense. "First place gets twenty dollars." 

"Twenty whole dollars!" said Yakko with astonishment. "We could have a feast with that!"

"Maybe we could pay someone to stay at their house," said Wakko thoughtfully. "I'm sure they would take twenty dollars."

"There are only three spaces left to sign up," said Dot. "If we're gonna sign up, we better do it now."

"Where is this sheet anyway?" asked Yakko, getting up from the concrete of the alley they had slept in last night, all his fatigue gone.

"Over there." Dot pointed off in the distance and started running. Wakko quickly got up and followed her and Yakko.

"So when is this contest?" asked Wakko, panting a little as he tried to catch up.

"Today," called Dot from behind her shoulder.

"Are you sure?" asked Wakko.

"Yeah," confirmed Dot. "It clearly said April 1st, 1991."

The siblings screeched to a halt where Dot stood, pointing up towards a sign hanging some inches above her.

Yakko, who could see the paper and read the best, stood up on his tiptoes to read it. "They're providing a piano," he said, smiling a bit. "We could all play something on the piano. I have Pachelbell's Cannon in D down pretty well. Dot, what do you think you could play?"

"I can play Music Box Dancer pretty good," said Dot.

"And Wakko, you'll just make something up, right?" asked Yakko.

"Actually," said Wakko, "a couple of months ago I was by this guy playing the piano in one of those fancy stores. He was playing this really neat song and he taught me how to play it."

"What is it?" asked his brother and sister.

"Maple Leaf Rag."

"I've never heard of that," said Yakko, looking at his brother.

_Well then, you don't know what you're missing!_ thought Wakko. _I'm going to play it at the concert, just so you can hear it!_

Yakko grinned roguishly. "I'll look forward to it."

"What did he say?" shrieked Dot.

_I didn't say anything,_ thought Wakko. _Tell her that, Yakko._

"Wakko says that he didn't say anything," said Yakko matter-of-factly.

"Stop doing that, Wakko," said Dot. "Talk normally."

"Fine," said Wakko. "I said, I mean I thought, that I'm going to play Maple Leaf Rag so Yakko—and you too—can hear it. It's a really neat song. Written by some guy named… Scott Joplin, I think."

"But you probably haven't played it very often," said Yakko.

"Do you think you can do it?" asked Dot, looking at Wakko quizzically.

"Of course," said Wakko confidently. "You are talking to the Master of the Piano here."

"Watch out, Wakko, your ego is showing," muttered Yakko.

"I think he can do it," said Dot. She looked at Yakko and flashed the smile that only young girls possess.

"Alright." Yakko thought for a moment. "Dot, I think that you should go first. People will like us more—and not think we're quite as weird looking—if we bring the cute one on stage first." He handed Dot the pen.

Dot stood on her tiptoes and scribbled her name on the sheet. The siblings couldn't read very well, and about the only thing they could write were their names. Dot was getting better at hers, and hers was also much shorter than her brother's names.

"Then I'll go," said Yakko, taking the pen from Dot. He signed his name right below his sister's.

"Why do I have to go last?" said Wakko glumly.

"Because we want the program to end with a bang!" cried Yakko. "You could make it end with a bang… literally!"

Wakko took the pen from his brother and signed his name on the very last space. "Don't underestimate my powers," he said evilly.

For those of you Animaniacs fans who are wondering what the h-e-double hockey sticks is going on here, I'll tell you. Yakko, Wakko, and Dot had been wandering around without a home for as long as they could remember. Eating whatever food they could pay for… and beg for… and very occasionally steal (only Yakko did this), the kids only knew their first names and their birthdays: Yakko was born on February 1st, 1982, Wakko on March 1st, 1984, and Dot on April 1st, 1986.

Yakko, the oldest, basically assumed full responsibility for his younger siblings. His talent with words had many a time helped him get out of a jam—or landed him in one. Being the sole caretaker of Wakko and Dot for as long as he could remember, he had faced more heartache, hopelessness, and despair than most people face in a lifetime. Having seen much in his nine years of life, he often seemed older than he really was.

Wakko was the middle child. Quiet and thoughtful—he hadn't learned to speak until he was three, and before then the only way Yakko could understand him was by reading his thoughts—Wakko had an innate ability to be able to read emotions, even hidden ones. All three of the siblings were musically gifted, but Wakko had the unique ability to sit down at a piano and play beautiful music from the spot.

Dot was the youngest and the only girl. She was cute, and she knew it—and so did everyone else. She was somewhat spoiled—as spoiled as one could be in her situation. A pout of her lip could go a long way, weather with her brothers or with innocent passer-bys. Dot was also blessed with an almost super-natural ability—she had photographic memory, be it with either faces or words.

"So," Wakko was saying, "the concert starts at three. What time is it now?"

"Don't know," said Yakko, "but we could always go look at the bank clock."

"I'll go," offered Wakko.

"Wait!" cried Yakko. "I'm not to thrilled with the idea of you going out by yourself."

Wakko pouted. _Come on Yakko, I'm seven years old. Besides, the clock is just a block away!_

"Fine, go," muttered Yakko. "But be careful, okay?"

As Wakko ran off, Dot said angrily to Yakko, "Don't let him talk like that."

"Like what?" said Yakko.

"You know, the thinking thing."

Yakko sighed. "Dot, why don't you want us to do that? That was the only way we could talk to each other for a while."

"But I never know what he's saying! And why do you have to talk back to him? I thought he could read thoughts!"

"He reads emotions, not thoughts," said Yakko with another sigh. "Two different things." 

"Well obviously _you_ can read thoughts!" cried Dot. "And I can't do any of that stuff!"

"Yeah, but you make up for it by being incredibly cute," said Yakko with a grin. Pretty soon, Dot was smiling back.

Wakko came running back. "It's 9:26," he announced.

"I'm hungry," complained Dot, clutching her stomach. "How much money do we have? I'm ready for some breakfast."

Yakko reached into the pocket of the slightly ratty clothes that he had had since he was seven. "I have 2.57. Do you have anything, sibs?"

"I have a nickel," said Wakko.

"Hey, wait a minute!" cried Dot in sudden remembrance. "Today's my birthday!"

"Oh, she's right!" said Yakko slowly, hiding a smile. "Wakko, I completely forgot. Did you remember?"

"Oh shucks!" said Wakko. "I forgot too! Sorry Dot, no presents for you today."

"You're lying," said Dot, not very successfully masking the uncertainty in her voice.

"Wait a minute!" said Yakko. "I think I might have something…" He rummaged around in his pocket. Finally he pulled out a Mounds bar. "Here it is!"

"Weird," said Wakko. "I got her the same thing." He also pulled a Mounds bar out of his pocket.

"Well, you guys know how much I love Mounds! Thanks!" said Dot happily. "This will be my breakfast."

"Candy for breakfast? It doesn't sound very healthy," said Yakko.

"You two can go get breakfast somewhere," said Dot. "I'll just stay here. Don't worry, I'll be alright by myself."

"Well… okay," said Yakko reluctantly. He and Wakko turned and walked away.

"So where do you want to eat?" asked Yakko.

_With 2.62, there isn't much we can buy,_ pointed out Wakko.

"We could always go to a gas station and get some munchies there," said Yakko.

_Yakko…_ Wakko hesitated before picking up his thoughts again. _What if we don't get any money from this talent show?_

"It's possible. We just get on with our lives," said Yakko shortly, as if he wanted to change the subject.

_But Yakko… what's our purpose? What good will it do? Will we spend the rest of our lives just wandering around like some hobos?_

"Something will happen, Wakko. It'll work out someday, you'll see." Yakko gave Wakko a shaky smile.

Wakko didn't return the smile. _Dot doesn't like us talking like this, does she?_

"No," admitted Yakko. "She feels left out because she can't understand you."

_We should quit._

"Yeah."

_I didn't mean for you to hear that!_ cried Wakko silently. Yakko was quiet. Finally he asked him in his silent way, _Yakko, can you… hear… my thoughts?_

Yakko wasn't looking at Wakko, though, and it didn't quite work that way. Yakko had to be looking at Wakko to understand him. Wakko grabbed Yakko by his shoulders and turned him around_. Yakko, can you hear my thoughts?_ he asked again. _I mean, do you hear my voice or… what?_

"I don't _hear_ anything," said Yakko slowly and quietly. "It's more like I sense something. I am somehow about to look at you and know exactly what you're trying to get across. The words seem to come from inside me, actually. But I don't hear anything."

_Weird,_ said Wakko.

"Very weird. Now let's get something to eat."


	2. The Contest

The talent show was going well, but the announcer lady, June Adams, was getting a little tired. _Thank goodness there are only three more acts,_ she thought to herself. She turned to face her audience.

"Thank you, Mr. Mueller," she said to the last contestant. "And now, our next contestant is… hmm, that's weird. It's Dot. No last name, just Dot." She paused for a moment, then yelled backstage. "Is there anyone back there named Dot?" she asked.

"Yeah, I'm coming!" came the reply.

When Dot walked on stage, there came a loud "Aaaaaawwww" from the audience when they saw just how cute she was. The only thing June noticed was how young she was… and the fact that she wasn't even human.

"Welcome, Dot," she said. "And how old are you?"

"Today's my fifth birthday," said Dot proudly.

June glanced at the sheet. "Do you have a last name?"

"No," said Dot. "Maybe I did once, but me and my brothers can't remember. We don't have any parents."

"Aaaaawwwww," the audience said again, although this time it was out of pity.

June sighed. Hopefully the judges would go easy on this girl. Only five years old, too! "So what are you going to play, sweetheart?"

"I'm playing Music Box Dancer," said Dot.

June had never heard of the song, but if she had, she would have said something like, "Yeah right". Music Box Dancer, a repetitive yet complicated song with very complex chord structures, would be considered a little above the piano playing level of a five-year-old.

"Go ahead," said June.

Dot sat down at the piano, and to the judges' amazement, played MBD at a fairly fast pace, with very few errors, and with dynamics and style. Once she was done the audience burst into applause. Some people even threw roses on the stage.

"Don't throw all of your roses!" cried Dot as she was bowing. "Save some for my brothers; they're better than me."

"Um… thank you, Dot," said June with astonishment as Dot gathered her roses and walked offstage. "Our next contestant is Yakko—"

"Thank you, thank you very much!" said Yakko. He was already on stage.

"So Yakko," said June, still a little amazed and freaked out, "are you Dot's brother?"

"One of them, anyway," said Yakko. "Now let's quit the small talk. I wanna get to playing!"

Before anyone could object, Yakko sat down at the piano and started to play Pachelbel's Cannon. This song is a very pretty one, which is one of those "built on a theme" songs. Its starts simply, but builds on the simple melody until at the end it turns out to be a very complex song. Yakko, like Dot, played it with very few errors at a moderate, steady pace.

Once he was done, he too was having flowers thrown at him. "Well, at least you aren't throwing tomatoes! Although those would keep me fed for a week or so…"

June pulled Yakko aside and spoke to him quietly. "How old are you, Yakko?"

"I'm nine."

"Yakko… this might sound rude, but what are you?"

"Why, I'm one of the contestants, of course!" Yakko and Dot always liked to answer this question (which was asked a lot) in a different way each time. (Unlike Wakko, who would simply answer "I don't know" if asked.)

"Seriously," June said.

"Seriously, I have no clue," said Yakko with a grin.

"Well, you did a very good job. Just like your sister."

"You ain't seen nothing yet!" said Yakko as he walked offstage. "Wait till you hear my brother!"

"I'm guessing that would be our last contestant—Wakko. Could you come on stage please, Wakko?"

Wakko ran on stage eagerly, his tongue was sticking out hanging out. Although Wakko as very smart, as his siblings very well knew, others would see him like this and thing him a bit mentally handicapped. June even was thinking, _He doesn't look like he'll be as good as his siblings._

Wakko could sense what she was thinking and found himself glowering a bit in anger. Why did everyone think he was stupid?

"So Wakko," June asked him as though she were talking to a mentally handicapped eight-year-old, "how old are you?"

"Seven," said Wakko simply, quietly controlling his anger. He sat down at the piano and without further ado started to play Maple Leaf Rag.

Out of the three songs that the siblings played, MLR was probably the hardest of them. Ragtime is hard to learn, and MLR is a hard ragtime piece. This song requires your fingers to fly all over the keys, and is also very fast. But we're talking about Wakko here, the best piano player of the three of them. He played the song flawlessly. When he was done, he got the loudest applause out of the three of them.

He quietly stood up and took a few bows. Then he held up his hands to signal the audience to shut up, calmly picked up his roses, and walked off the stage.

"Thank you, Wakko," said June shakily. _What siblings! What talent!_ she thought.

Meanwhile the judges were talking amongst themselves.

"We have never given three siblings the top three prizes, and we certainly aren't doing it now," said one of the judges.

"But you heard the girl say that they didn't have any parents," said another judge. "And the oldest was only nine. A nine-year-old, taking care of two kids? They probably need the extra money badly."

"And they deserve it, too," said a third. "They're only kids, but did you hear them playing?"

"Besides," pointed out the second, "it's not like we've ever had three siblings play here anyway."

They handed June the envelope, and she opened it quickly. "Well, looks like we were all impressed with those kids. Because all three of them won the top three prizes!"

Yakko, Wakko, and Dot ran on stage again, laughing and hugging each other. The audience stood up started cheering.

June had to holler above the applause, "YAKKO WON THIRD PLACE, DOT WON SECOND PLACE, AND WAKKO WON FIRST PLACE!"

Wakko and Yakko looked at each other. _Guess I was worrying for nothing,_ Wakko thought.

Yakko gave Wakko a slight nod and a smirk. Meanwhile, Dot was saying to June, "You can just give all the money to Yakko. He can keep better track of it than Wakko and I can."

"Yeah, since I'm the oldest I'm the official money tender," said Yakko smugly. "Thanks again, good, fine people!"

"Chow!" said Dot.

"Change your underwear!" cried Wakko.

A wave of applause drowned out anything else that the siblings said.

…………

"Well what a stroke of good luck!" cried Yakko as the left the competition.

"Too bad you only got five dollars," commented Wakko.

"I don't care. It was a group effort anyway. Thirty-five whole dollars!" said Yakko happily.

Everybody was leaving the auditorium at this time. A man who looked to be about twenty-five or so walked up to the siblings.

"Hi kids," he said.

"Hello sir," said Yakko, Wakko, and Dot courteously.

"My name is Tony Hall, and I would like to personally congratulate you. I've been playing the piano for fifteen years, and I'm not even as good as you three are!"

"Thanks for the compliment, Tony," said Yakko, once again very courteously.

"So where do you kids live?" asked Tony.

"We stay wherever we want to," said Yakko. He started to sing "That's cause I'm the type of guy who never settled down, where pretty girls are well you know that I'm around—"

"You can sing too! But you really don't have a home?"

"Nope," said Dot. "We're just poor, delinquent kids."

"We're not delinquent," stated Wakko.

"Poor kids. Would you like to stay with me for the night?" asked Tony.

Wakko and Dot's faces lit up, then fell. They knew Yakko too well—Yakko hated to be in debt to anyone, and seemed to be unable to accept charity. And sure enough—

"Oh no sir," Yakko was saying, "we couldn't possibly trouble you like that."

"It would be no trouble at all," said Tony.

Dot looked up at her oldest brother. He eyes grew and her voice, already high-pitched, was high and innocent. "Pleeeease Yakko. Please let us go with him."

Yakko winced, obviously giving in. He managed to give Dot a half-firm look. "No, we don't want to inconvenience him." Dot knew she had to try a different approach.

"I think the lack of nutrients has made me weak, Yakko," she said, with the sweetest yet most helpless voice she could put on. "He could fix us a real meal. You don't want me to… DIE, do you?"

"Fine," said Yakko. "We're going." Dot grinned—Yakko's love for her and Wakko was his greatest weakness.

Tony laughed and led them to his car. He got Yakko in the passenger seat and Wakko and Dot in the back. "So today's your birthday, Dot?" he asked as he drove off to his house.

"Yep," said Dot happily.

"Well then, since it's your birthday, and since you are 'lacking nutrients', I'll let you pick what you three will have for supper."

Dot thought for a moment, remembering a time when she was about three. She was looking in the window at someone eating some long, stringy stuff. "This is wonderful spaghetti!" she heard one of the people say as they ate it.

"Could you make spaghetti?" asked Dot.

"What's that?" asked Yakko.

"If it's edible, I'll eat it," said Wakko.

"I like your attitude, Wakko. It's noodles with tomato sauce dipped over them, Yakko. Yes, I can fix you spaghetti, Dot," said Tony, grinning.

"Okay!" said the three siblings simultaneously.

…………

"So you three don't even have a last name?" asked Tony. The four of them were sitting at Tony's table, eating the spaghetti that Dot had requested.

"No," said Yakko, "but I've always thought we should have one. It's kinda embarrassing, you know. I only have one name! Most people have a first, middle, and last name, but I only have a first! It would be awkward if someone ever married me—she'd loose a last name!"

"You know, Yakko," said Tony thoughtfully, "there's something about you that reminds me of Bugs Bunny."

Yakko looked confused. "Who's Bugs Bunny?"

Tony looked astonished. "If you've never seen a Looney Tune, then tonight that's what we'll do. We'll watch Looney Tunes."

"What are Looney Tunes?" asked Dot, her mouth full of spaghetti.

"Cartoons made in the 30's through the 60's. I think you guys would like them."

"Well then," said Wakko, who had long since finished his supper, "what are we waiting for?"

"Me to finish," muttered Dot. She slurped up the rest of her noodles. "Okay, I'm ready now!"

Tony lead the siblings to his TV and popped in a Looney Tunes tape. And another. And another. For hours the siblings sat enthralled, watching those glorious old cartoons.

Finally Tony had to say, "That's it, I'm out of tapes."

"Ah man!" cried Dot.

Yakko grabbed one of the tape cases and looked at the WB shield on the front. "So who are these Warner Brothers?" he asked. "They were geniuses!"

"They were Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack. The real geniuses are the writers and directors, though," said Tony. "I've got lots of books on the Warner Brothers cartoons, if you want to look at them."

Yakko and Dot smiled at the idea. When the looked to see Wakko's reaction, however, he was simply standing in front of the TV with a thoughtful look on his face.

_Warner. I like the sound of that. Warner._

"Me too," said Yakko thoughtfully.

Tony scratched his head in confusion. "Who's he talking to?"

"He's talking to Wakko. What did he say?" cried Dot.

"I said that I like the sound of Warner," said Wakko.

"There!" said Tony suddenly. "There's your last name! Warner!"

"How common is it?" asked Yakko skeptically.

"It's no Joe Average name like Smith or anything, but people won't ask you to repeat yourselves when you say it or mispronounce it or anything."

"I like it too," said Dot, grinning. 

"Yeah!" said Yakko. "We can be the Warner brothers!"

"And the Warner sister," pointed out Dot.

"Well, Warner brothers and Warner sister, you must be pretty tired. Do you want to go to bed?" asked Tony.

"Sure!" said the Warners.

…………

Tony's guest room had a king-size bed, and the Warners could all easily fit in it. Although it was a very comfortable mattress, and Wakko and Dot feel asleep almost instantly, Yakko tossed and turned unhappily late into the night. He should have slept easily, being in this house, with a real bed, and a last name, but something was bothering him.

"Yakko… this might sound rude, but what are you?" he remembered June asking him.

_What am I?_ thought Yakko helplessly. _Where did I come from?_

He turned around and saw that Wakko was also awake, watching him with thoughtful eyes.

_Can't sleep?_

"No," said Yakko quietly, so not to wake up Dot.

_What's keeping you awake?_

"You would know."

Wakko smiled, almost sadly. _You're wondering what we are._

"Yeah. Wakko… if we did have parents, and we stayed with them till Dot was born, that means that till I was four…"

_Someone raised you,_ Wakko thought, finishing Yakko's statement for him. _You didn't have to take care of yourself. Someone else took care of you._

"Yeah. And did our parents die, or abandon us, or what? What do we do with our lives?"

_Maybe Warner Brothers would hire us as actors._

"Not a bad idea," said Yakko slowly.

_Well, I'm tired, so I'm going to try to sleep._ Wakko flipped over and fluffed his pillow.

"Okay. Good night, Wakko."

_Good night, Yakko._


	3. Yakko's Story

Yakko's "talk" with Wakko didn't really help him sleep any better. He spent a restless night in that bed, his fitful sleep filled with unsettling dreams. Finally, at precisely 6:42 (according to the clock in the guest room) Yakko just decided that now was as good as time as any to get up.

He rolled out of bed and stretched a little, rubbing sleep out of his eyes. Debating weather he should wake up Wakko and Dot, he turned around and looked at the sleeping younger Warner siblings.

Dot's head rested gently on her pillow. Her eyes were very lightly closed; not squinted at all. She had a cute, content smile on her mouth. Her body was in a slight arc, and her tail curved gently towards her body. She had the look of a delicate sleeping princess.

Yakko turned to look at Wakko. He looked dead. Wakko always looked dead when he slept.

His eyes were tightly squinted, and his tongue hung out of his open mouth. There was a small pile of drool on his pillow. His body was stretched out and twisted in very strange way. His tail was wrapped around one of his legs.

Yakko sighed and shook his head, even though he was smiling.

Dot's eyes fluttered open slowly. She raised her arms over her head and yawned sleepily.

"Good morning, Dot," said Yakko, moving over to her side of the bed. "Did I wake you?"

"No, at least I don't think so," mumbled Dot. A small smile formed on her lips. "I'd almost forgotten where we were."

"You mean, with a nice guy who actually cares about us? Something that no human has really ever done before?"

Dot looked at Yakko quizzically. "Don't you think that we're human?"

Yakko gave Dot a sad smile. "Do we look human?"

"We act human," said Dot quietly.

Yakko sighed. "Dot, you know that I have no idea what we are. I'll probably never know."

"Could you tell me anyway?"

"Huh?" This request confused Yakko. "What do you mean."

Dot smiled. "Just tell me a story of where we might have came from."

"I want to hear this too." Dot and Yakko spun around and saw that Wakko was smiling at them. They hadn't even noticed that he had woken up.

Yakko sighed, knowing there was no getting out of this. He sat down on the bed to the left of Dot, while Wakko crawled over and sat to the left of Yakko. Yakko put his arms around his siblings' shoulders and pulled them a little closer to him. He wasn't really sure what he was going to say. What COULD he say? There were so many unknowns in his life… Finally, Yakko began in a clear, confident voice, masking his doubt.

"Once upon a time there were a man and a woman who fell in love and got married. And they were very happy together. But after awhile, they decided that they wanted to have a baby. So, they did. They had me! The three of us even made that happy home happier. But they decided that I should have some siblings. So, exactly two years and one month after they had me, they had…"

"Me!" cried Wakko.

"Yes! You!" Yakko continued. "And so, you can imagine that this couple and their two sons were—I hate to overuse this word, but happy—they were happier than ever. Overjoyed. That's a good word. Thrilled. Giddy."

"Enough already!" cried Dot impatiently. "Just get to me now!"

"Oh, right," said Yakko. "So they decided to have a third child. They were hoping that this one would be a girl. And it was!"

"It was me!" said Dot happily.

"Of course." Yakko had to think hard now. Whatever happened at this part, no matter what he made up, it wouldn't be happy, or joyous, or thrilling, or any other synonyms of happy.

His voice grew quieter. "Unfortunately, soon after their daughter was born, they got in a nasty car wreck with a semi truck. They both died." Yakko paused for a moment. Then he continued, very softly now. "The city wanted to put us up for adoption, but we were real little back then. We thought that we had to go out and find our parents. So we did, and when the city went to our house, they didn't find us there. They thought that we had been kidnapped. That was five years ago, however, and they basically lost interest in finding us. The only people who had cared about us were our parents, and they were dead."

Wakko sighed and looked down at the ground. He had known that during this story, something like that was bound to happen, but still… it didn't mean he liked to hear it. Even though it had been one of the nicer ways of explaining their lack of parents

Dot's face also fell, and a sigh escaped from her lips. Yakko had made the story up. Maybe their parents were still alive. But if they were, then why weren't they with them? Why were they even here?

And Yakko… he thought to himself that if those two faint, early memories that he had were really memories and not dreams, then their childhood had not been happy at all. Not even close.

…………

Tony had made the Warners pancakes for breakfast that morning. "Good morning, Warners," he said cheerfully. "How did you sleep?"

"Fine," lied Yakko. Wakko looked over at him crossly. Wakko knew when people were lying, especially people he knew well.

"So," asked Tony, "what do you think you're going to do now? I mean, where do you think you'll go? If you want to stay here that's fine."

"No," said Yakko, "we'll probably just be fine wandering around like we always have."

"Actually," spoke up Wakko, "Yakko and I were talking last night and we were thinking that maybe Warner Brothers might hire us."

Yakko mumbled something that sounded like, "Shut up, Wakko."

"Really?" said Tony. "Well, let me think here… Warner Brothers Studios is in Burbank, California. When and if I get time off work I could take you."

"No Tony," Yakko said quickly, "we'll manage."

"But Yakko!" cried Dot. "He's offering us a place to stay before we go, and a quick way to get there!"

"Why don't you just let someone take care of us, just this once?" cried Wakko angrily.

Years of anguish burst out of Yakko at that very moment. "Don't you guys get it?" he screamed hysterically. "He isn't in charge of us! If anyone is, I am. And we can't trouble people just so we can go to some studio that probably won't hire us anyway!"

"Yakko, if you really feel that way, I won't do any more for you," said Ton, pretty alarmed at the angst he was witnessing.

"Okay, good!" said Yakko.

Wakko was hardly paying attention to Yakko at the moment, however. It was Dot whom he was looking frightened of. If Yakko had been looking at Dot, he would have seen what Wakko was seeing. Breathing heavily, eyes so furrowed in her skull that they were hardly visable, and an intense scowl stretched across her face, Wakko knew that Yakko was about to face hell times ten—Dot's aggressive streak was about to kick in.

"YAKKO!" screamed Dot, leaping up on the table. Dot was rather small for a five-year-old, but even if she hadn't of jumped on the table she would have looked menacing and towering over her brother. "Yakko, if all you want to do for the rest of your life is just wander around and beg for food, then I'm leaving you! I wanna **_do_** something! I wanna **_see_** things that I've never seen before! I wanna be an actress, Yakko! I think that I have the talent! And Warner Brothers could very possibly hire me. Maybe you don't want to stay here until Tony can take us, but I **_am_**! It'll be a lot quicker that walking, and I don't wanna wait. My life's waiting for me, and I'm gonna take it **_RIGHT NOW_**!"

You could have heard a pin drop after Dot finished her speech/rant/cry for freedom. Yakko, Wakko, and Tony looked at Dot half scared, half amazed. Finally Yakko spoke.

"I…I'm sorry. I really am. I didn't mean to blow up like that. And you're right… if I really want what's best for you two, then we need to get out of our lives as bums… as soon as possible."

Dot turned and looked at Yakko. Suddenly her eyes filled with tears.

"I'm sorry Yakko," she sobbed. "I'm sorry I yelled at you. You're my big brother, and I love you, and I'll stay with you no matter what."

Yakko, all the energy drained from him. slumped in his chair. Dot and Wakko suddenly found themselves at his side, hugging him. Dot was still crying. Wakko rarely cried, so he just looked a mixture of sad and relieved.

"Wow," said Tony. "That's very sentimental."

"Yeah," said Wakko. "I'm gonna barf."

Yakko managed to sit up a bit. "If you really want to, then we'll stay here until Tony can take us to Burbank. I don't like it, but you are right. We would probably get there faster anyway."

Tony suddenly looked at his watch. "I'd better get off to work. Yakko, will you be alright here by yourselves?"

"Of course," said Yakko. "In fact, we might go out and spend our winnings."

Tony smiled. "You do that. I'll be home at four, okay? I'll also find out when I can get off, if I can get off, to take you guys to Burbank."

"That'll be great," said Yakko. "Have a nice day!"

After Tony left, Wakko looked at Yakko and grinned. _You really had to swallow your pride, didn't you?_

Yakko turned his head so that he couldn't see Wakko. "I don't want to hear it. Sense it. Whatever. You'll be giving me grief about this for as long as I live."

Dot didn't know what Wakko had thought, but she guessed that it was something like, "You really had to swallow your pride, didn't you?" She knew Wakko well enough to know what he would have said. Which didn't explain why she couldn't read Wakko's thoughts either… Dot pushed her pangs of jealousy back in her mind. "Let's go out and spend the money we won last night."

"Yeah," said Yakko. "Come on, sibs."

…………

Once they got downtown, the Warners split up so they could go to stores that fit their interests. Yakko, for instance, went to a bookstore. He knew of something that he had always wanted, but at five dollars was a little hefty for him, especially going along the line that most of their money should have been spent on food, anyway. But now, since they were hopeful that they would get jobs, they could spend some of their money on luxuries. Luxuries like a pocket dictionary.

Yakko made his selection and practically hugged his book. "Wow, imagine the immense vocabulary I'll possess!" said the already wordy nine-year-old.

Dot, meanwhile, was at the music store. She and her brothers, while musically talented, were only able to sit down and play instruments that were in some sort of public place, obviously not owning any instruments of their own.

The small girl browsed through all the instruments. "Jeez, I had no clue how much instruments cost." She suddenly gasped in exuberance. There was a small child's guitar—for only ten dollars! Strumming a few chords on it and being pleased by its tone, Dot ran in line to purchase it.

Wakko, as opposed to his siblings, had something much more practical in mind—food. What better to spend twenty dollars on? But unfortunately, a sudden lurch of his bowels hindered his progress.

"I have to potty!" he moaned helplessly. He ran for the nearest building—a Wal-Mart. Tearing through the automatic doors, he found the bathroom and practically leaped in.

A while later, he emerged from the bathroom, looking relieved. He then noticed for the first time that the bathrooms were right next to the candy. "Hmm, why not?" he muttered. "I can buy stuff here."

As Wakko looked through the candy to make his selection, he noticed out of the corner of his eye that he was near the hat department. For some reason, a bright red baseball cap seemed to catch his eye. He turned around to get a better look, approached it, and touched it. The cloth had a smooth, gentle feel to it. Wakko put the hat on, with the brim side backwards. He liked the feel of it a lot, so he checked the price tag. It was 15.95. He could afford it!

_My siblings are going to think I'm crazy. They've known me for a long time, and they know that whenever I get money, I spend it on food! Not hats!_ thought Wakko. Then he shrugged. _But another thing that I am is unpredictable. I'm buying this!_

Wakko quickly ran up to the cash register to pay for his hat. As the cashier rung it up, Wakko noticed a flaw in his otherwise perfect hat—there were no ear holes.

"Excuse me, ma'am," he said to the cashier, "but do you have any scissors?"

"Why, yes," she said, confused, handing them to Wakko. "Why do you ask?"

"I need ear holes," he said simply, they way he always said things. He quickly cut two out. "Thank you," he said, handing the scissors back. He handed the cashier his twenty-dollar bill and collected the change. The cashier grabbed a sack.

"Oh, I don't need a sack," said Wakko. He placed the hat on his head, smiled, and strode out of Wal-Mart with a confident glow in his eyes.


	4. A Day In The Park

It was a beautiful day, and Dot Warner, instead of heading back to Tony's house, just decided to go to the park. Clutching her new guitar, she sat down on the merry-go-round and played a few chords. A small smile crept across her face. She felt a strong urge to start singing, her heart was so light and free.

She had hardly begun playing, however, when something caught her eye and drew her attention. There was a group of three boys standing by the swings and yelling at the three people on the swings to get off. The ringleader of the group looked to be the oldest and biggest.

"Get off those swings!" he yelled. "We want em!"

"But we were here first!" protested a boy on the swings.

"Yeah, well I don't care. You get off right now or we'll push you off!" The authority in his voice made the three children meekly stop and crawl off the swings.

Dot, angered by the injustice, decided to teach those boys a lesson. She stomped over to the bullies and yelled, "**HEY YOU MEANIES**!"

All three of the boys looked at Dot, then threw their heads back in laughter. It wasn't very nice laughter, either.

"What's so funny?" demanded Dot.

"You're so little!" laughed the ringleader, whose name was Peter. "And you're not even human, you freak!"

Dot glared at them. "You guys need to learn some manners. And I am _not_ a freak! "

"Yeah you are!" laughed Peter. "You're an ugly, timid, stupid little freak!"

Out of all those insulting words packed into that mega-insult, one hit Dot especially hard. "Ugly?" she whispered, almost choking.

No one, no one had EVER called her ugly before. She was always "cute". A lot of people she passed by said that she was cute. The audience at the talent show thought she was cute. She was pretty sure Tony thought she was cute. Her brothers called her cute too, but she figured that might be the thing that brothers do. Had everyone who had ever said that she was cute just said that because in reality she was SO ugly that they didn't want to hurt her feelings?

"Yeah, you ugly monster! You can't boss me around!"

Dot could feel tears well up in her eyes. Ashamed and embarrassed, she ran back to the merry-go-round, covering up her face so that no one would see it.

_Ugly? Ugly? Am I really ugly?_ she thought to herself, now letting her tears run freely down her face. _Have people just been calling me cute not to hurt my feelings?_

Dfot didn't notice that, while she was crying, an older girl was confronting Peter and his henchmen. She had seen them bullying Dot and had wanted to do something about it.

"That wasn't very nice you, Peter! You should go and apologize right now!"

Peter laughed. "I don't ever wanna see her ugly face again, or yours either."

The girl snorted. "You're so rude." Then she walked off to the merry-go-round and sat next do Dot. "You okay?" she asked gently.

Dot looked up and saw the girl, with a worried look on her face. "I'll be fine," she said.

The girl sighed. "Peter does that to everyone. His idea of a good time is putting other people down. And no matter how much you yell at him, he won't stop or even apologize. So what's your name?"

"I'm Dot… Dot Warner."

"I'm Claire Thompson."

"Am I really ugly?"

Claire shrugged. "Don't take what Peter says personally. He insults _everybody_. I think you're cute."

"That's what everyone says. I thought that they might be lying, you know, to not make me feel bad."

"We probably shouldn't dwell on this very much longer. Don't worry about it. Peter's probably insulted his own mother. So your name's Dot, huh?"

"Yeah."

"That's strange, but nice. How'd you get that name?"

"I don't really know," said Dot with a shrug.

"Have you asked your parents?"

Dot looked down at the ground. "I don't have any parents."

"Oh! Sorry!" Claire said quickly. "What happened to them?"

"I don't know. I don't even know if they were human or not. Yakko, my oldest brother, can't even remember."

"Oh, so you have siblings? How many?"

"Two brothers, Yakko and Wakko."

Claire grinned. "Those are strange names too."

"Yeah, but they fit. Yakko yaks all the time! And Wakko… well, he's wacko." Dot smiled too.

"So how old are you and your brothers?"

"Yakko's nine, Wakko's seven, and I just turned five yesterday." Dot stretched uncomfortably. "I'm getting tired of talking about myself. How old are you? And do you have any siblings?"

"I have an older sister. She's sixteen, and is always running off to some party or something. I'm eight, and trust me, when you're eight, you get used to insults."

"But you don't like them, do you?"

"Heck no!" cried Claire.

"Me either," said Dot. She suddenly felt like she had to cry again. "Usually, I don't hafta cry about them though."

"You should cry. It makes you feel better."

Dot turned around and saw Peter getting off the swings. Since she had excellent memory, she could remember everything that he had said to her: "You're an ugly, timid, stupid little freak!" Tears leaked out her eyes again.

"I'm trying not to take it personally," she said, her voice quivering. "But I wouldn't have to worry about it anyway if he just was nicer! Why does he have to be so mean?"

"Why does who have to be so mean?" someone suddenly asked. Dot and Claire spun around. Yakko had his hands on his hips and looked at Dot quizzically.

"It's nothing," said Dot, trying to quickly wipe away her tears.

"Yeah, nothing my butt," muttered Yakko. To Dot's surprise, he actually picked up Dot and held her, with one arm under her back and the other arm under her knees. He stroked the fur on her face gently.

"What's the matter, Dottie?" he asked.

Dot remained silent. Claire spoke up. "There's this jerk over there named Peter, who never fells satisfied unless he picks on at least one person a day. He's done about five or so today, and Dot was one of them."

Yakko sighed. "Someone should go and teach him a lesson."

"But it never works," said Claire sadly. "Almost everyone I know has yelled at him to stop it, but he never listens."

"That's the problem right there," said Yakko, setting Dot down on the ground and facing Claire, talking with both words and gestures. "It's the yelling. The way you tell people something makes a big impact on how they react to it, you know. Oh sure, you have to be assertive and all, and yelling some of the time might work. But when you come up and yell, in a timid fashion especially, he knows that that's just a cover up of how frightened you are. Even if you are frightened, you have to hide it. And what do people do when they're frightened? They yell, of course. This Peter jerk knows that."

"Are you sure he'd know that?" asked Claire. "I mean, he isn't very smart. He's two years older than me but he's flunked so many times that he's in second grade with me. He'll probably flunk this year, too."

"He may not be book smart, but the way he became a bully was by understanding people, and you don't have to be smart to do that. Now, in this particular case, I think that you first yell to get his attention. Then you talk very quickly and angrily, but not yelling. Talk like you're on the verge of yelling. Then, for a strong finish, at the end of your speech really let it all loose and YELL. Not a frightened yell, but a yell of pure anger. He'll be whimpering in a corner before you know it!"

"I'm not sure if I could do that, or if I had the guts to," admitted Claire.

"Alright, then I will," said Yakko. He winked to the girls and walked over to the sandbox, where the bullies were belittling even more children.

"Are you sure he can do it?" asked Claire, as Yakko strolled over to the boys with an amused smile.

"Oh, don't worry," said Dot, all the tears gone from her face. "Yakko's got a way with words."

"But Peter," a kid said, almost crying, "I don't have any money."

"Well kid, that's too bad. Cause I'm gonna keep you here till you get me some!"

"HEY!"

Peter turned around. "What?" he yelled angrily. When he saw Yakko he started laughing again. "Look boys!" he cried. "It's another freak of nature!"

But suddenly Yakko grabbed Peter by the shirt collar and yanked him down to his level. Yakko was about average sized for a nine-year-old, and Peter was a large ten-year-old, but Yakko, just like Dot had that morning, looked much taller and nastier than Peter ever could.

Peter started to protest, but Yakko cut him off. "Shut up and listen to me," he said quickly and dangerously. "Congratulations, you're just won the Jerk of the Year award. You probably are honored, aren't you? Well let me tell you, it's no honor. Must I be a kindergarten teacher and tell you that it's rude to be a bully? Heck, I didn't even go to kindergarten, and I've known that probably since before I was four. Now even if someone was fat, and you said that they were fat, they wouldn't like it, would they? That would be extremely rude on your part. How would you like it if you were fat and someone called you a fatty? It's like, you don't need someone to tell you, you already know. Now, that's bad enough. But when you insult someone, and that insult is false, that's even worse. Tell me, what did you say to my baby sister?"

"Aahh…" whimpered Peter. "Ahhh, I, uhh…"

Yakko pulled a little harder on Peter's shirt collar. "Tell me," he whispered dangerously, "tell me what you said to my baby sister."

"I… uh… said that she was a freak, and uh… that she was… ugly…"

"There it is," whispered Yakko, sounding, if possible, even more dangerous than he had before. "If you think that my baby sister is ugly then you need your eyes examined. Not only was it extremely rude, it was also a total lie." He glared at Peter. "I hope you've learned a lesson. Not everyone will be as easy on you as I have."

"E-e-easy?" stammered Peter. "You call this easy?"

"As a matter of fact, yes," sneered Yakko. "This is what I call hard." Claire and Dot, who were watching, could tell that this was that strong finish that Yakko was talking about. "You know, insulting **MORONS** like you shouldn't be allowed to **LIVE**! What was God **THINKING** when he put the slimeballs like **YOU** on this planet? You're the reason the **_ENVIRONMENT_** is the way it is, you're fouling it up! And if you don't apologize **_RIGHT NOW, YOU WON'T LIVE TO SEE THE NEXT SUNSET_**!"

"I'm sorry!" cried Peter, sobbing.

"Not to me, you asshole, to my sister." This was the first time that Yakko ever cussed, and it surprised him as much as it did Dot.

Peter ran over to Dot, who looked amused. "I'm sorry!" he screamed, then turned and ran away. As he ran, he kept on yelling, "I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Yakko turned to Peter's two followers. "Well?" he asked, that same dangerous tone in his voice.

The two boys looked at each other, screamed, "AAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!" and ran as fast as they could.

Once they were far out of sight, Yakko grinned. "I don't think you'll have any trouble from them for awhile," he said to Claire. "Whoo, but what that fun! I oughta yell like that more often! Really takes a load off of a guy."

Claire just stared at Yakko for a while. Finally she said, "You're amazing."

Yakko grinned even wider, making it seem so unlikely that just a minute ago he had screamed his head off in anger. "Yeah, I am, aren't I?"

"Hey, Yakko! Hey, Dot!" It was Wakko, who ran up next to them, also looking somewhat amused. "There were these three kids that just tore down the street next to me and were screaming and crying, and I have a feeling that you were behind it."

"You know me too well, don't you?" laughed Yakko. "They felt the need to pick on many a person, including Dottie here, so I thought I would teach them a little lesson."

"Don't call me Dottie!" cried Dot. "Wait… you did earlier, didn't you? YAKKO! You know I hate that name!"

Yakko wasn't really listening. "Wakko, where did you get that hat?" he asked.

"Like it?" asked Wakko. "I bought it with my prize money."

"You bought that, and not food?" asked Dot, sounding very surprised.

"Yeah, I kinda surprised myself, too." He looked at Claire. "Who's this?"

"Oh," said Dot. "Claire, this is my brother Wakko. And this is Yakko, of course. Yakko, Wakko, this is Claire Thompson."

Wakko courteously shook Claire's hand. "It's very nice to meet you," he said sincerely.

"It's very nice to meet you too," said Claire just as sincerely. "All three of you Warners seem like very nice people." She suddenly grinned. "Except maybe Yakko."

Yakko laughed. "I only treat people like that when they deserve it. And you, young lady, deserve nothing but the best. Care to join me on a little stroll?"

Claire blushed. "Sure," she said quietly, smiling.

Yakko and Claire started down a path in the park, leaving Wakko and Dot behind. "So Dot tells me that you don't have any parents," said Claire, in an attempt to get a conversation going.

"Afraid not," said Yakko. "Maybe we did once, but I can't remember."

"Isn't that… scary? I mean, freaky, you know? Like, not even knowing where you came from?"

Yakko sighed sadly and sat down on the edge of a fountain. "Yeah," he said quietly. "Who knows, maybe wherever we came from was great. Maybe our parents were real nice, and it was by complete accident that they lost us… or we lost them. But…" Yakko gulped. "But sometimes I have these dreams about where I came from. I… I don't know. They're just not very pleasant dreams at all. You know, like that I came from an abusive family or whatever." 

Claire sat down next to Yakko and put her arm on his shoulders for comfort. "I can't say that I understand, because I never could really understand what you've been through the way you can. All I can say is that I'm sad right along with you."

Yakko felt a little better. "My brother and sister are probably waiting for me. I'd better go."

"Alright," said Claire. She stayed sitting on the fountain and watched Yakko leave until she couldn't see him anymore.

Wakko and Dot were waiting for him. "So," said Dot mischievously, "what were you two doing in there?"

Yakko shrugged. "We just talked. Why do you ask?"

"Because she had a crush on you," said Wakko simply.

Dot, of course, embellished what her brother had just said. "She was sweet on you. She wanted you to hold her in your big, strong arms and whisper sweet nothings in her ear. Oooh, Yakko, you devil!"

"Well, even if she did have a crush on me, I didn't have a crush on her."

"Oh, come on, Yakko!" said Dot. "Be a little romantic here!"

Yakko rolled his eyes. "I don't think I'll ever be romantic. I'm never going to fall in love."

Wakko sighed. "Yakko, I may be just seven, but from what I know about love, you don't choose to fall in love. It just happens."

"Well, it won't happen to me. I've seen people who are in the streets and grossing people out because they're kissing and slobbering all over each other's faces. And equally bad, I've seen couples get into nasty fights that probably end up in divorce. It all seems like too much of a hassle, you know? I've got enough to worry about."

"Like lunch," said Wakko. "I'm starving."

"You're always hungry," said Dot.

"Well, I am too," said Yakko, "so let's go to Tony's house. He gave me the key, you know, so we can go in and see what he's got."

Wakko followed his siblings over to Tony's house. "I'm so hungry I'll eat everything he's got. I think I'll have a sandwich, and maybe some chili, and a hamburger, and…"


	5. The Warner Brothers (and Sister) at Warn...

Well, after two months of waiting, the day had finally come.

Tony was taking them to Burbank TOMORROW!

Wakko leaned back in his bed, reading a book quietly. He and his siblings had learned how to read efficiently in the last two months.

"Yakko, could you tuck me in?" asked Dot, who was in her nightgown and standing by the bed.

"You haven't brushed your teeth yet," said Yakko, grinning and showing his shiny, freshly brushed teeth.

"Aw, come on, Yakko. Can't I skip it just this once?"

"Before we came here, you had skipped it for five years. You have a lot of catching up to do. Do you think that Warner Brothers will hire you if you crumbling teeth?"

Dot pouted. "Well, if you put it that way… I guess I will."

"That's the ticket," said Yakko encouragingly. "I don't blame you for not wanting to go in there, though. Just be careful around the toilet so that the monster living in there doesn't eat you, okay?"

"There's a monster in the toilet?" shrieked Dot. "I'm not going in there!"

Yakko laughed and shook his head. "Dottie, my dear sister, can't you understand sarcasm when you hear it?"

"Oh, you were joking," said Dot, a little relieved. Suddenly she became very angry. "Don't call me Dottie!"

"You have such a bad temper," sighed Yakko. He picked up Dot by her waist and touched his nose with hers. Dot giggled. "Now hurry, before your teeth rot away!" said Yakko, pushing her in the direction of the bathroom.

Wakko sighed and set his book down. They hadn't paid any attention to him. It was like he wasn't even there. Wakko felt a sudden pain in his chest and his eyes suddenly filled with tears.

Tears? Wakko had thought that he didn't even have tear ducts, since he couldn't honestly remember a time when he had cried. But that was precisely what he was doing now. The tears slowly streamed down his face. He made no noises, however, so Yakko couldn't hear him. Ashamed, Wakko hid under the covers, trying to convince himself that it was all just his imagination. The only thing that he could think, however, was that Yakko was Dot's favorite, and Dot was Yakko's favorite, and that neither of them cared about Wakko very much. He was just there.

At that very moment, Yakko sat down on the middle of the bed, where Wakko was, ready to tell him goodnight. "Oh, Wakko! You can't hide underneath those covers. I know you're in here."

When there was no answer, Yakko said, "I'll just pull these back, and you'll be there. AHA!" he cried as he pulled the covers back. Wakko quickly turned his head so Yakko couldn't see it. That was when Yakko knew that something was wrong.

"Wakko, what is it?" he asked, putting his hand on his shoulder. Wakko finally turned his head, and Yakko could see that his face was tear streaked. "What's the matter?"

"Dot's your favorite, isn't she?"

"Wakko, I don't have favorites. I love you just as much as I love Dot."

"Dot's your favorite, because she's the baby. And you're Dot's favorite, because you're… you. You know, taking care of us and stuff." Wakko stopped there. He knew he was just going on and on, feeling sorry for himself. Besides, he could tell that Yakko was telling him the truth.

"Wakko, maybe I don't pay as much attention to you as I should. And I'm really sorry. But I really do love you a lot. I mean, we're brothers, right? Without you I would just have a sister." Yakko grinned cockily. "I'd have no one to look at babes with."

Wakko smiled, and blinked away his tears. _I'm just that ignored middle child. Like all those studies say._

"What studies?" asked Yakko.

_Studies that say that your birth order plays a big part in the type of person you are. The oldest is the very responsible one, the youngest is the baby, and the middle is… ignored._

"Since when have you read stuff like that?" asked Yakko, making a face.

Wakko, despite himself, smiled. _Since whenever I felt like it, that's when!_

"Well, you'll be one of the least ignored middle children that will ever live," said Yakko, hugging Wakko. "I promise to pay more attention to you."

_That's alright Yakko. You don't have to do that. You pay attention to me. I was just feeling sorry for myself. And if you pay any more attention to me than you already do, then you'll just get annoying._

Wakko turned his head, but Yakko was still looking at him, thus still able to "read" his thoughts. So Yakko knew that Wakko was thinking, _That was nice of him to say that, but I wonder if he really means that? I think he does… but I don't know…_

Yakko decided to pretend not to have "heard" that. Dot then walked into the room.

"That took awhile," snorted Yakko.

"I was brushing my teeth for a long time so they wouldn't rot and fall out," said Dot.

"Hey Dot," Yakko said suddenly. "I have a question to ask you. Who's your favorite brother, me or Wakko?"

Yakko suddenly realized his mistake. Dot was only five, and maybe a little too young to realize that you shouldn't chose favorites from your family. 

"Hmmm…" thought Dot. Well, at least she was having to put a lot of thought into it. At least she didn't quickly blurt out who her favorite was. She opened her mouth to speak. "Hm, no, never mind," she suddenly muttered, going back to thinking again. Finally she shrugged.

"I don't think I have a favorite. I love you both but in different ways. Why, were you two arguing about it?"

"Kind of," said Yakko, looking at Wakko. "Satisfied, oh dearest brother?"

"Yep," said Wakko.

"What, he's satisfied that he's not my favorite?" asked Dot.

"He's satisfied because I'm not your favorite, either," said Yakko. "He seemed to think that we only thought of him as second banana."

"That's untrue!" cried Dot. She climbed into bed and hugged Wakko. "I'm glad to have two great brothers like you and Yakko. You're both great for different reasons."

"What are those reasons?" asked Wakko, who was hugging his little sister back.

"Well, I know that both of you love me back, and you both make me laugh. But Yakko's great for picking me up and spoiling me. Sometimes I love being treated like that; sometimes I get real tired of it. But Wakko, you don't spoil me, at least not nearly as much as Yakko does. We can be goofy together."

"Hey," objected Yakko, "I am too goofy!"

"Come on, Yakko," laughed Wakko. "Compared to me, you're sane. We must train you."

Dot suddenly stood up on the bed. "Soldier, a-tennn HUT!"

Yakko immediately stood at attention and saluted. "Sir yes sir!" he cried.

Wakko grinned. "Okay, so he is kinda goofy." Just then Tony came in.

"You three still aren't in bed yet? You're going to have a big day tomorrow and—"

"—we need our rest. Yeah, I know, Tony," said Wakko.

"We'll go to bed right away," said Dot.

Yakko still stood at attention.

"At ease," said Dot. Yakko immediately slacked and said, "Yeah, I'm dead tired. Goodnight!"

At that, all three Warners snuggled into the covers of the bed and got to sleep rather quickly.

…………

The next day, Tony took the Warners to Warner Brothers Studios in Burbank, California. Once he dropped them off at the front gate, Yakko said, "We'll be fine from here, Tony."

"Are you sure?" asked Tony.

"Positive. Thanks for everything."

"Wait a minute." Tony grabbed a piece of paper and scribbled something on it. "Here's my address. Whatever happens, write me, okay?"

"Sure," said Yakko. "Thanks again. I don't know if I can ever thank you enough."

"It's nothing. Good luck, Yakko Warner. I'll be looking forward to hearing a lot about you." He looked at Wakko. "And Wakko Warner, you don't get into too much trouble, you hear?"

"Gotcha," said Wakko.

"And Dot Warner, you just keep on being as sassy as you are cute. Alright?"

"But of course!" said Dot.

"You have all of your suitcases?"

"Affirmative," said Yakko. "And Dot has her guitar."

"Alright. See you soon, and good luck!"

"Bye Tony!" called out the Warners as Tony drove away.

Dot sniffed a little. "He was almost like our dad."

The Warners crawled under the lifting gate that should have been risen for them if they had had approval to pass. Since they sneaked into restricted places all the time, however, this hardly bothered them.

Unfortunately, security spotted them.

"Hey, you kids! This area's restricted!" cried one of the security guards. Four more appeared, and they were all heading straight towards the Warners.

"Run!" cried Yakko. They grabbed their luggage and made a run for it.

"Where should we hide?" panted Wakko.

Yakko looked around. "There! The water tower!" The Warners, when they had still been living on the streets, stayed in water towers during the nights often. They quickly climbed up the tower.

"Alright, now what?" cried Dot when they reached the top. "They're following us!"

"Get inside!" The Warners pulled at the large "WB" on the tower. This, fortunately, was the door, and they jumped in.

"They went in the water tower!" they could hear the security outside yelling.

"What do they want to do, drown?" asked one. It was obvious to the Warners that this guy didn't spend too much time in water towers. Any of the Warners could tell you that the water in a water tower was stored at the bottom of the tower, and the door opened up to the top, where it was completely dry.

Right now, though, all the Warners could focus on was the fact that the security was wrenching open the door. "What're we gonna do Yakko?" cried Dot in fear.

_What would Bugs Bunny do in this situation?_ thought Yakko. And suddenly he knew. He ran over to the door.

"Yakko, what are you doing?" cried Wakko. Yakko couldn't answer though; the door was opened.

"So this is the kind of welcome you give your own children!" cried Yakko. "We've missed you so much, but obviously you didn't miss us at all! I'm so unhappy!" Yakko was praying that Wakko and Dot would catch on quickly and play along. He shouldn't have worried.

"Oh, pappoo!" moaned Wakko. "Don't you even care?"

"What?" cried Dot. "You don't think I'm cute anymore?"

"I am NOT your father!" cried the man who the Warners were clinging to. "What are you doing here?"

Yakko immediately jumped off of the man and said, "We want to be hired."

"Oh, for that new children's TV show! Why didn't you say so? Follow me."

As the Warners followed the guard, Wakko looked at Yakko and winked. _What would we have done if they WEREN'T having auditions for a children's TV show?_

Yakko shrugged and winked back.


	6. Blast From the Past

The security guard led the Warners into an office. A man was sitting at the desk. "Yes Joe? What is it?" the man asked.

Joe the security guard said, "These three kids were running around on our property but we caught them in the water tower. Turns out they are here to audition. I'd keep an eye out on them; they're real characters."

"Good," the man said, "because that's exactly what I haven't been getting. You may leave, Joe."

Once Joe left, the man said, "Okay. It's nice to meet you. My name is Steven Spielberg. What are yours?"

"Hi, Steven," said Yakko. "My name's Yakko Warner."

"I'm Wakko!" said Wakko, grinning insanely

"And I'm cute!" said Dot. 

"That's Dot," confirmed Yakko.

"Yep. Call me Dottie and you die."

"You guys are great! I think that I just might hire you right now."

"Go ahead," said Yakko. "It took us so long to get here, and so much trouble…"

Steven still looked excited. "As you probably know, I've been looking for actors for a new TV show. We had a huge hit with Tiny Toon Adventures, but it'll be canceled next year and they want me to have a new show ready by 1993. I didn't know what to do! We found the Tiny Toons by complete accident. Buster and Babs just wandered in, they were huge fans of Bugs, and wanted to meet him."

"Hold it!" said Wakko. "Bugs is real?"

"He is very real," said Steven. "Maybe you'll meet him."

The Warners grinned, each thinking of meeting their heroes.

"Anyway, " continued Steven, "Tiny Toons is a hit, but when we heard that it was canceled we knew that we had to think of something."

"Who's we?" asked Yakko.

"All of the Tiny Toons team. We didn't want humans, and that's about all that have come in. And we wanted something recognizable about the new characters. You know, how Tiny Toons were like miniature Looney Tunes. You three almost look like those old 30's cartoons… and your last name is Warner! This is great! You're hired."

"Hooray!" cried the Warners. They all grabbed hands and danced around in a circle. Yakko suddenly pulled off. "That was easier than I thought it would be."

Meanwhile, Steven pulled out a piece of paper and a pen.

"Now I'll just need to ask some questions. Only one of you has to answer. Whoever's most comfortable talking."

Wakko and Dot immediately stepped back and Yakko immediately stepped forward. "Okay," said Steven, "please tell me your names again."

"Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner."

"Alright…" He scribbled it down on the piece of paper. "Now could you tell me your birthdays, and how old you are."

"But you could figure that out by subtracting—"

"Your birth years from 1991, I know," said Steven. "But I don't feel like doing the math."

"Don't blame you. I'm nine, and I was born on February 1st, 1982. Wakko is seven, and he was born on March 1st, 1984. And Dot's five, and she was born on April 1st, 1986."

"So you are each exactly two years and one month apart!" marveled Steven. "Odd." He looked at what he had written down. "Yakko, could you check that I spelled your names right?"

Yakko walked over and peered down on the paper. "With Wakko's name it is K K, not C K. Otherwise, you got them right."

"That's an odd spelling," asked Steven. "Why is that?"

"Well, Wakko has never been very good at spelling," said Yakko, glancing over at his younger brother who was trying to get comfortable in a chair. "The first time he ever wrote his name down, that's how he spelled it. I thought it was funny, so we kept it like that."

"Works for me. Who are your parents?"

Yakko's face fell slightly. "We don't have parents."

"No parents? Then who did you live with?"

"We took care of ourselves."

"Well, then who _were_ your parents?"

"I… I don't remember. As long as I can remember, we've just been… vagabonds." Yakko had recently found that word in his pocket dictionary, which was defined as, "A homeless person who wanders from place to place; a tramp". He had thought that fit them pretty well.

"So how did you get here?"

"Well, for the last two months we were staying with this guy named Tony. He was nice enough to take us here."

Steven grinned. "Didn't think you'd end up in a water tower, did you?"

Yakko laughed. "We sometimes stayed in water towers, actually. But that was only temporary, just like today's episode was."

Steven didn't answer. He was thinking hard about something. Finally, he said, "You know how I said that you Warners look like 30's cartoons?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, we could… we just could… we could say that you three actually were created in the 30's. Early 30's. Back then cartoons were simple and slow-paced, almost sluggish. But you three were just too CRAZY for that time period. Thus, you were locked in the water tower. But in the 90's, you escape!"

Yakko sighed. "That's a neat idea, but I don't exactly look 60 years old."

"So? You're a cartoon character. Who says that cartoon characters age?"

"Alright. Let's go with it. I'm willing," said Yakko. He looked at his siblings.

Wakko was sitting sideways in the chair, his feet dangling over one armrest. He looked rather bored and probably wasn't even listening to what Yakko and Steven had been talking about. There was a loose thread on the cloth armrest and Wakko was picking at it.

Dot was climbing all over her chair. In fact, she was almost to the top, but she suddenly fell off. The fall didn't hurt her much though. In fact, she rolled on the floor and giggled and shrieked the way you would expect a five-year-old to. Often, Dot acted much older than her age, but now she was acting the way a little girl just getting out of preschool would.

"Dot seems a little young," noted Steven.

"Actually, she usually acts much older than you would expect a five-year-old to," said Yakko. "Right now, she's just having the type of fun that she won't find fun pretty soon."

"Hmm, a growing girl?"

"Duh! All of us are growing. By the time the show starts in 1993—that's when you said, right?"

"Right."

"We'll, she'll be seven going on eight then. But she is definitely capable now, trust me."

"Well, to get to business…" Steven pulled out three contracts out of his drawer. "Wakko! Dot! Come and sign these contracts, please."

Wakko and Dot got up and walked over to Steven's desk. Yakko took a pen and signed the contract. "Remember to put Warner on there too," he said. When Steven gave him a strange look, Yakko explained, "We just got our last name two months ago."

Steven sighed. "You kids are getting stranger by the minute."

…………

That night, the Warners were given a room in the apartments that were located on the Warner lot. "I can't help but say this, boys," said Dot, fluffing her pillow, "but I really liked the looks of that water tower. I mean, we're going to live in it in the series, why don't we live in it in real life?"

"Maybe we'll ask tomorrow," said Yakko. He was too tired to do anything but sleep at the moment. "Good night, sibs."

"Uh, good night," said Dot. Yakko had ended that abruptly.

Wakko had noticed that Yakko didn't go into detail like he usually did, too, but he also was too tired to care. "Good night," he said. All three of them went to sleep almost instantly.

…………

No, it isn't the end of the chapter yet. Wakko and Dot slept very well that night. Sure, they had dreams, but they were nice ones and the two younger Warners had no recollection of them. I wish the same could be said for Yakko, but this isn't the case.

Yakko's dream was pulled from memories that he didn't even know he had. Memories that had long since been hidden from his memory, and for a good reason…

…………

"_WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH_!"

"I'm sorry Dot, I know, I'm hungry too," soothed the four-year-old Yakko to his baby sister Dot. Pangs of hunger from not eating in two days were the source of Dot's cries.

"_WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH_!"

"Shh," whispered Yakko. "Everything's alright." Completely untrue, of course. He rocked Dot and sang softly to her in an effort to calm her.

Dot's cries became weak whimpers. There were still traces of tears in her tiny eyes. Yakko pulled at a corner of his clothes and dried them off. That piece of cloth was wet anyway, since it was raining, so it didn't do too much. The alley they were hiding in wasn't good cover from the rain.

The sounds of footsteps in puddles could soon be heard. Two-year-old Wakko entered the alley.

"Did you get anything?" asked Yakko, although he knew the answer.

_No!_ cried Wakko silently. Had he have been able to talk there would have been fright and anger in his voice. _Most people didn't even see me. Those that did, well about half of them ignored me and the other half didn't know what I wanted. I wish I could talk, Yakko! I wish I could tell them what I want!_

Yakko pulled Dot a little closer to him. "We need to do something soon, Wakko. I'm not sure how much longer Dot can take it."

_I'm not sure how much longer _I_ can take it!_ cried Wakko. _I'm just as hungry as Dot is!_

"And what, you think that I'm not? Look, I wish that I could do something about this, and I'm trying my best—"

_Well, it isn't good enough, _snapped Wakko.

Yakko had had it. "Oh, just shut **up**! You don't know anything! And I'm getting sick of you acting like you do!"

Wakko's face froze. It looked like ice. Then it looked like stone. _Well, guess what, Yakko? I'm sick of you, too. I think that I might just do us both a favor and leave, right now._

Yakko was scared and angry. He loved Wakko, and hadn't really meant to yell at him like that. Nor did he want Wakko to just walk off. Still, Wakko was being too stubborn for his own good.

"Fine, Wakko." He shoved Dot into Wakko's hands. "You try taking care of her. By yourself. Then you'll understand what I have to go through. In fact, I have to go through twice as much, because of you." Yakko walked out of the alley and turned the corner. He meant to walk away but he didn't get more than a few feet away from the entrance to the alley.

Meanwhile, Wakko was left in the alley. Dot's whimpers turned to cries. _I can't take care of a baby!_ thought Wakko_. How does Yakko do it? I guess that I was being a little hard on him…_

Meanwhile, Yakko sat by the entrance to the alley and cried silently. Oh, he was such a jerk. Now he was all by himself, and he knew that Wakko and Dot couldn't possibly survive on their own. He could hear Dot crying in the alley. Oh, he was so STUPID!

Just then a man walking home from the super market, muttering to himself, "I should never have walked to the store, I should have figured that it would rain," walked by Yakko. The man's heart was filled with pity as he saw the young boy slumped against the wall and sobbing quietly. He reached into his bag and pulled out a loaf of bread. He set it in Yakko lap. Yakko looked up at the man suddenly.

"Oh, no sir, you don't have to—"

"But I want to," he interrupted. "You look like you need something to eat." Then, very quickly, the man left.

Yakko looked at the loaf of bread dumbly. Then he suddenly jumped up and yelled, "Hey, Wakko! We've got food!"

Wakko ran out, holding a wailing Dot. _We do?_

"Yes, we do!" Yakko gave Wakko an apologetic look. "I'm sorry I yelled at you."

_I deserved it. I was being a jerk._ Wakko gently set Dot down and sat down next to her. Dot immediately stopped crying when she saw the food. The three siblings got what they had been wanting that whole time—food.

…………

With a gasp, nine-year-old Yakko shot up in bed. Breathing heavily, he glanced at the clock. 2:27. Clutching his heart, he tried to get the terrible—yet true—memory out of his head. To no avail.

He had trouble getting back to sleep.


	7. Preparations

Not too much was done about the Warner's show for awhile. Steven was too busy working on Tiny Toons and it took up most of his time. He also had new movies in the works, including some dinosaur movie.

The Warners (who did move into the water tower, and had it furnished to their liking), in May of 1992 when this chapter begins, were each a year older. And, after a year of waiting, the siblings were starting to get anxious and impatient.

Especially when time was spent working out the most _minute _details!

"First thing, costumes," said Steven, leading the way into one of the many buildings on the Warner Bros. lot. "A good cartoon character should have a good costume. Our costume lady will have you try on some clothes."

He led the Warners into a room with thousands and thousands of clothes strewn on the floor. "Come in, come in!" said a lady. "I only have two dressing rooms, so one of you will have to change out here."

Wakko and Dot zoomed into the room, grabbed an armful of clothes, and shot into the dressing rooms. "Aw, man!" cried Yakko.

The costume lady was examining Yakko. "Hmm, not bad, not bad at all! He has a very nice body build."

"Thank you, I do my best, you know," said Yakko, feigning modesty. He pulled his shirt down a little and then took his pants off. He grabbed the first pair of pants that his hands touched, and put them on.

"Okay…" said the costume lady. "Take your shirt off."

"That's a little personal, isn't it? I mean, I've hardly even met you."

The costume lady sighed. "You already took your pants off. You might as well take your shirt off, too."

"Just not at the same time," laughed Yakko. He obediently took his shirt off. Embarrassed, he crossed his hands around his bare chest and tried to hold up his pants, which were about two sizes too big.

The costume lady went to a different corner of the room and grabbed a belt. "Put this on," she instructed.

Yakko grabbed the belt and very quickly looped it through the belt straps and buckled it. With relief, he let go of his pants. They were still way too big—Yakko had a feeling that if he tried to walk, he'd trip over his pants, since they still fell far below his feet—but at least they were staying on.

The costume lady looked him over. "Good, I like that."

"You like having people unable to walk without tripping all over themselves?" Yakko asked incredulously. "Anyway, now can I get a shirt to go with this?"

"I don't think that you ought to wear a shirt with this."

"No shirt? What type of children's TV show is this?"

"First of all, you are not human. Technically, the only creatures that have to wear clothes are humans. And secondly, you'll need something to move around in. I don't know what they have in mind for your show, but if it's anything like Tiny Toons, you'll be moving around a lot. Besides, as far as making a successful cartoon design, less is often more."

"Well, alright," sighed Yakko unhappily, "but can't I at least have some pants that actually fit?"

"Trust me, Yakko, you'll lose the effect. Take a look in the mirror at yourself. You look pretty good."

Yakko looked at himself in a nearby mirror. Actually, he did look pretty good. A lot of his height was in his legs, so there wasn't much upper body to cover, anyway. And the way that the khaki pants folded over his feet so that you could hardly see them actually had some charm.

The costume lady could see Yakko grinning. "See, what did I tell ya?" she asked him.

The door to one of the dressing rooms suddenly pushed open as Wakko spilled out on his back. He wasn't wearing any pants, but the large blue turtleneck he was wearing covered his lower body adequately. Sheepishly, he reached over and grabbed his hat. He stood up and flashed an abashed smile. 

"Wakko, come over here," instructed the lady. Wakko, still holding his hat and pulling down on his shirt, obeyed.

"Aw, come on, Wakko," said Yakko. "That shirt's big enough. Look at me, I'm not even wearing one."

"Jeez, Yakko, I never knew you had it in you," said Wakko, a mischievous grin spreading across his face.

"Alright Wakko, stand up straight," instructed the costume lady. She took a look at Wakko in his shirt. She frowned, and looked at his hat he still had in his hands. "Put your hat on," she ordered. When he put it on, she gave a cry of delight.

"Yeeeees! That's perfect! You two stand together."

The two brothers stood side by side, occasionally looking at each other and unsuccessfully fighting down giggles at each others' half nudity. "This looks good," said the lady, "but we need to make sure that your sister's outfit goes with yours. Dot, are you about done?"

"Of course she's not done," whispered Yakko. "She's a female, and females can never try on one outfit without trying on twenty more." Wakko snickered.

"No, not yet!"

"Just come out now! We're tired of waiting!" complained Wakko.

"But I'm only half-dressed!" came the reply.

"So are we!" said Yakko. "And we'd be very upset if us two were running around on the show half nude, but you had all the proper clothes on. Come on, sis! All for one and one for all!" With that he ran to the dressing room and pulled the door open.

"Eeek!" cried Dot, grabbing a shirt and covering her torso. She was wearing a pink skirt and that was it.

"Dot, there's nothing there to be ashamed of. I mean, you're six years old, for crying out loud!" said Wakko impatiently. "You have no breasts whatsoever!"

"That doesn't mean I like walking around without a shirt on!" snapped Dot.

Before Dot had anymore time to oppose her clothing, the costume lady immediately grabbed Dot by the wrist and pulled her over near the mirror.

"Oh, you look so adorable in that!" she said in a singsong voice. Then she looked at Dot's ears. She had a flower tied around them, like she usually did. "I like the flower thing, but I think that a scrunchie would look better on that. And I think that I have a flower scrunchie over in my hair supplies. Want to go check?"

"Sure!" said Dot, temporarily forgetting her somewhat lack of clothing. She had always secretly wanted a scrunchie anyway, not some flower that died after one day and she always had to replace. Finding the scrunchie right away, she tied it in her ears and looked to the costume lady for approval.

"That looks perfect," she said with a nod. "Go stand by your brothers."

As all three Warner siblings stood together, the lady laughed. "This is so perfect I almost don't believe it. You have to see this." She grabbed the mirror and put it in front of the Warners. They saw what she was talking about.

Yakko looked sly in his khakis. Wakko looked fun-loving in his blue turtleneck and red hat. Dot looked cute in her pink skirt and flower scrunchie. All three of them blended very nicely together.

"One more thing," said the lady. She reached into the drawer where Dot had found her scrunchie and pulled out three pairs of gloves.

"Not gloves!" cried Yakko in dispair. "Bugs told me that the gloves were itchy, hot, and downright uncomfortable."

"But it will give you a more wholesome, cartoonish look," she said, handing them to the Warners.

Yakko, Wakko, and Dot put them on. "Yeah, they do look okay, I guess," said Dot.

"Okay. This is what you'll be wearing all the time in the show."

"Oh great," muttered the Warners.

…………

As much as the Warners wanted to start working _right now!_, there was still a lot of unfinished business to take care of. For example… finding costars. And boy, were there a motley crew! Mafia-like pigeons, an elderly yet fiery explosive-loving squirrel and her young, hyper nephew, a cute yet annoying girl named Mindy and her dog Buttons; a singing cat named Rita and the dog who followed her around named Runt, two mice who wanted to rule the world (at least one of them anyway), and even a guy who was going to act as the head of Warner Bros. (of course they weren't using the real guy, he wasn't an actor!) were all hired for this new cartoon show.

On the last day of auditions, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot were sitting in the office, looking very bored. That was before Steven burst in.

"I'VE GOT IT!"

The unexpected burst caused Dot to scream in fright, Wakko to fall forward, and Yakko to fall backward. "Got what?" asked Yakko, recovering.

"A name for the show. Sorry for scaring you, but this just came for me. People will think that you're animated, and you'll be acting like maniacs."

"The Animated Maniacs?" asked Wakko, puzzled.

"That's too much of a mouthful. My idea was Animaniacs."

"Faboo!" cried Wakko, climbing up on the desk and sitting on it.

"Wow!" cried Dot.

"Bravo! Congratulations for finally thinking of something!" cried Yakko. "Took you long enough…"

Just then there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" said Steven.

This little bald doctor guy came in. "Um, hello. Is zis vere ze auditions are?"

Yakko immediately sat down and tried to look formal. "That is correct, sir! Take a seat, take a number, take a hike, take a bath, take a nap, and get me some coffee. So, what brings you here, good doctor? Do you need money, or just really want to wait on me hand and foot that badly?"

The doctor gave Yakko an annoyed look, but chose to ignore his questions. "I vould like to audition for ze children's television show… I guess."

"Oh, don't let Yakko scare you out of it," said Dot.

"It vasn't him," said the doctor. "I don't really vant to do zis at all. Vell, maybe a bit. But it vas my nurse who brought me here in ze first place. She has a cousin who is an actress and I guess zat she talked her into it. Zen my nurse talked _me_ into it."

Wakko looked at Yakko for a few seconds. Yakko then giggled and nodded. Dot knew that they were doing that thinking thing again. She chose to ignore it. "So, you have a nurse! Is she here?"

"_Ja_, she is outside. Miss Nurse?"

"Yes, Dr. Scratchinsniff?" came the reply.

"Could you come in here, please?"

"Her last name is Nurse?" asked Dot. "And she's a nurse? Weird." Dot turned and looked at her brothers, waiting for them to jump on that.

Nothing.

Dot looked back at the door and saw this nurse that Dr. Scratchinsniff was talking about. Thick, gleaming blonde hair; beautiful shapely eyes; porcelain, blemish-free skin; full, red lips; a killer figure—she looked like a woman in those old Tex Avery cartoons where the guy who laid eyes on her stamped his feet, had hearts in his eyes, whistled like a maniac, and basically lost all control.

"Oh boy," she muttered, looking at Yakko and Wakko. Just as she suspected, their eyes were bulging and their mouths were hanging open.

No one said anything for a moment.

The nurse was looking at Wakko and Yakko a little angrily. "This is what all males do when they see me. Even little boys like them!"

Yakko and Wakko continued to stare; Yakko's eyes were dangerously close to ogling right between her breasts.

Dr. Scratchinsniff introduced her. "Zis is my nurse, Miss Hannah Nurse."

Wakko finally spoke. "Hellooooo Nurse," he said, in an awed tone of voice.

"So, why do you want to act?" Dot asked Hannah.

Hannah shrugged. "My cousin, mostly. She was in a movie, and kept telling me how much fun she had. I trust my cousin a lot, so I decided to give it a try."

"Who is your cousin?" asked Steven.

"Jessica Rabbit," replied Hannah.

"Go fig," muttered Dot.

"Oh really!" said Steven. "I worked with her. Well, I'm going to hire you two. Your effect on the Warner brothers is rather funny, Miss Nurse."

"Um, you guys?" Wakko suddenly asked. "Yakko's still staring off into space. He isn't really looking at Hello Nurse here—"

"My name's _Hannah_," said Hannah angrily.

"What's wrong with him?" finished Wakko.

"As a psychiatrist, I may be able to help." Dr. Scratchinsniff examined Yakko closely. Yakko now looked sleepy, dozy, and yet strangely content, even enticed. "Hmmm, zis is very peculiar."

"Do you know what's wrong with him?" asked Wakko.

"How old is he?" asked Scratchy.

Wakko looked confused. "He's ten. But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Hmm, I have never seen zis occur vith someone as young as he is, but I suppose it is possible."

"What is it?" asked Wakko and Dot.

"I think I have a feeling," said Steven.

"Oh, you and your Freud-ism," Hannah suddenly exclaimed. "No ten-year-old is capable of having a sex fantasy, and I don't care what you say."

Scratchy shook his head. "Not in ze sense zat you are thinking, Miss Nurse. However, like you said, you seem to have a… certain effect on all males, even boys as young as Yakko here. It's probably not as intense as you are thinking, but zere are probably some definite lustful thoughts up zere."

"Faboo," breathed Wakko.

"That's it," said Hannah. "I'm leaving." She quickly signed the contract that Steven had in front of her and walked away.

Scratchy signed his too. "I'm terribly sorry about zis, but Miss Nurse isn't very fond of males," he apologized. "Thanks for letting us be on ze show." He then left too.

Just then Yakko blinked and became conscious again. "Whooooooa…" he breathed in awe. "I thought I was too young to be thinking thoughts like that."

"Yeah, really!" yelled Dot. "Anyway, Miss 'Hello' Nurse, as she's been dubbed, and Dr. Scratchy have been hired, while you just sat there and were thinking about… things I shouldn't say!"

"It was that obvious?" asked Yakko. "Jeez, I feel real embarrassed."

Wakko looked jealous. "Why didn't I get to have a sex fantasy? It looked enjoyable."

"It's cause you're only eight, Wakko," said Steven.

"But Yakko's only ten! It's not fair!"

"Besides, it was _not _a sex fantasy!" Yakko exclaimed. "There was just a lot more human flesh involved than what is the accepted moral standard."

"Both of you are really gross," said Dot. "I don't want to listen to this." She walked off.

Wakko and Yakko looked at each other. _Girls_, Wakko thought.

Yakko grinned. "Yeah, ain't they something?"


	8. The Actual Story Beginning to Get Underw...

A couple of weeks later Scratchy set up appointments with the Warners. Being the psychiatrist that he was, he wanted to know what made these strange children "tick".

Needless to say, Wakko and Dot thought this sounded really boring. And Yakko wasn't too keen on talking to Scratchy after the doctor was convinced that Yakko had had a steamy sex fantasy.

"I don't wanna go," moaned Dot, clinging to the couch as if she were being dragged.

"Yeah really," said Wakko. "P-sychiatrists are people you go to when you have problems."

Yakko sighed and rolled his eyes. "It's psychiatrists, Wakko. The 'p' is silent. Although I gotta admit that that has a nice ring to it. P-sychiatrist. But _aaaaaaanyway_, I don't wanna go either, but he did ask us and it would be rude not to."

"Fine, Mr. Manners," muttered Dot. "I'll go, but I won't like it."

…………

Scratchy's office was located on the far end of the studio. No one really knew why Scratchy had set up an office there anyway. Some thought that Warner Brothers was paying him extra to work as the studio's actual psychiatrist as well as be an actor. Others speculated he was just an insane doctor.

Hannah was filing some papers at the desk when the Warners shuffled in. She looked up and gave them somewhat of a dirty look. "Oh, you're here. Dr. Scratchinsniff wishes to see you first, _Yakko_." An unusual cold emphasis was put on Yakko's name.

Yakko immediately noticed it. "Look, about that incident—"

"_Just_—go…" Hannah interrupted, pointing to Scratchy's office.

"Don't even let me get a word in edgewise," mumbled Yakko. A bit dejectedly, he opened the door to the office.

"Oh, hello, Yakko. Sit down," instructed Scratchy.

Yakko sat down in a chair and immediately started to talk. "Look, Scratchy, if this is about that whole… somewhat dirty thoughts thing… well hey, I'm sure I'm not the only ten-year-old to be thinking about those kind of—"

"Yakko, please, be quiet. Zat is not vat I vanted to talk to you about anyvay. It is perfectly natural."

Yakko's face brightened. "Oh…alright then! So—" Yakko slouched back lazily on Scratchy's couch/bed thing, "vat did you vant to talk about, zen?"

"Very funny," said Scratchy a bit icily. "First off, do _not _call me Scratchy. Anyvay… vat I vanted to know about you is… vell, how you managed it."

"Managed what?" asked Yakko, perplexed.

"Raising yourself and your siblings single-handed, zat's vat. Perhaps you should start at ze beginning, ya?"

"Well, doc," said Yakko, his voice strangely quiet, "I guess it all started a few weeks ago, when I started having these strange dreams… this was about the same time my mother ran off with another man and left my father in the dust, and also when my wife—"

"Yakko…"

"Sorry Scratchy… I mean Dr. Scratchinsniff," apologized Yakko, grinning. "I couldn't help it. I think it was the couch."

"Shall we continue?" asked Scratchy, sounding a little impatient.

"Oh, sure," said Yakko. "Taking care of Wakko, Dot, and not to mention me, huh? Well… it wasn't as bad as it could have been. Most of the time, getting food was easy. Especially when we were younger. You know, evoke the pity of these poor saps. We'd put on our saddest faces, and say in these really sappy voices, 'Could we have some food? We're very hungry,' and they'd almost always give us something."

"So you don't remember your parents at all?" asked Scratchy.

"Well, I…" Yakko suddenly stopped talking.

Scratchy looked at Yakko. "I sense zat zere is something you have been vishing to get off your chest for a long time."

"Yeah," said Yakko. "If I tell you, you have to promise not to tell anyone. Not even Wakko and Dot. Especially not Wakko and Dot."

"I never tell anyone about vat goes on in here. Not even Miss Nurse. It is standard psychiatric policy."

"Okay," said Yakko. His voice was shaking slightly. "Whoa, do you have a glass of water or something? Anyway…I have these two memories. They're really faint… and yet they're real clear. I sometimes lie to myself, and say that they're just dreams."

"Do you think zat?" asked Scratchy.

Yakko took a deep breath. "No," he finally said. "I'm pretty sure that they're real. One's really short, but it's not pleasant at all. It's… it's someone punching and hitting me and telling me I'm worthless. And then the second one…" Yakko had to pause and take a couple of very deep breaths. "I'm sorry," he said. "Really, do you have some water?"

Scratchy went over to a sink and returned with a glass of ice water, placing it in front of Yakko. Yakko gratefully gulped it down. "Continue ven you're ready, Yakko."

Yakko wiped off the excess water from his lips. "Okay. I'm ready now. This one's really detailed. It's really dark and hard to see, but I'm holding Dot in one arm and with the other arm I was holding Wakko's hand… just like I did a lot when I was four or five. And there's someone saying to me, 'You have to run away, Yakko.' And I said, 'Why?' And he said, 'Because he's going to kill Dot, and probably you and Wakko too. You take good care of your brother and sister, you hear me?' And then I nodded, and I guess I ran away."

Scratchy nodded, furiously writing notes on a pad of paper. "So vat do you think zat zey mean?"

"Mean?" cried Yakko. "Are you kidding me? They mean that I was living with someone who wanted to kill me!" He paused for a moment. "That's enough digging into my past for one day. May I leave now?"

"Yes, you may leave," said Scratchy. "Thank you."

"Yeah, thank you too," said Yakko, leaving the office hastily.

…………

Scratchy didn't get nearly the dramatic details from Wakko and Dot that he had got from Yakko.

Slouching on the couch in much the same position that Yakko had been, Wakko was saying, "Let's be honest here, I had won twenty dollars, and I spend it on a hat? Think of all the more useful things I could have spent it on." He stopped and picked at a loose thread on the couch, apparently out of things to say.

"Vere do you think zat you came from, Vakko?" asked Scratchy suddenly.

Wakko shrugged, a bit surprised by Scratchy's question. "I don't really know. God has a weird sense of humor and was bored, and created us, I guess? Or our mother was a dog and our father was a human, or something… which is really gross, if you think about it…"

…………

Six-year-old Dot was even more bored in Scratchy's office than Wakko had been. "So I wanted this ice cream cone _really _bad, but I didn't have any money. So I started to cry, and I got it. That's how you get things that you want, you know. Cry."

"So Dot," Scratchy asked, "do you have any ideas on vat your parents were like? Vere you came from?"

"I have no clue," she said, flipping over and laying on her other side, facing away from Scratchy. "But I'm always worried that we'll find our parents someday and… I just can't get the idea out of my head that both of our parents were humans. And when they had Yakko, they thought, 'What a weird looking creature! Let's try again, and hope we don't get something like that!' And then when they had Wakko, they thought, 'We had one of these freaks again! If we don't get a human next time, we quit!' And then when they had me… I was the last straw and they kicked us out." She smiled apologetically. "Dumb, huh?"

"Not really," said Scratchy with a smile. "You may go now. Your session is over."

Scratchy watched the three siblings leave and race each other back to the water tower. So much alike, in their zany ways. And yet so different.

…………

It was now September 1993. The show _Animaniacs _was going to air for the first time.

"Could someone help me with these papers?"

Hannah "Hello" Nurse was holding a big stack of papers and struggling with their weight. The Warners immediately jumped in the scene.

"Helloooooo Nurse!" said the Warner Brothers. The Warner Sister Dot—now seven years old— sighed and shook her head. So did Hello Nurse.

"These are all of the scripts," she explained. "Mr. Spielberg wants them filed away neatly. And they're very heavy."

"Say no more!" said the now nine-year-old Wakko. He grabbed about a fourth of the papers from the top. Then Dot grabbed about a third of the remaining papers from the top. Then Yakko took about half the remaining papers from the top. Hello Nurse carried the rest.

Even with this division, all four of them still had a lot of papers to hold. Hello Nurse struggled a little to hold all of her papers. "Do you need any help with those, HN?" asked Yakko.

Hello Nurse smiled and said, "No, Yakko, I think I can manage." Over the course of a year, Hello Nurse had actually slightly forgiven Yakko and they had become good friends.

Wakko, though, had continued to be a nuisance to Hannah. He purposely drooled sometimes when she entered a room, and he often growled when she was there. But today, Dot noticed, Wakko was behaving very well. He wasn't even looking back at Hello Nurse. He was just going off to file the papers like he had been instructed to.

He opened the file cabinet and put his papers in the front. "Dot, you put your papers behind mine," he said. "Then Yakko, you put your papers behind hers, and Hello Nurse, you put yours behind his."

"Yes sir," said Dot, putting her papers behind Wakko's papers. "Wakko, could I speak to you for a moment? Privately?" 

"Sure," said Wakko, looking a bit confused. Dot grabbed Wakko by the wrist and dragged him off to another room.

"Okay, Wakko, what's up with you?" demanded Dot once she had shut the door. "Why aren't you acting like a moron in front of Hello Nurse?"

"Oh, and you want me to?" asked Wakko, giving his sister a grin.

"Yeah, truthfully, it is an improvement. But why aren't you?"

Wakko's smile turned to one of pure secrecy and glee. "I can't believe that even you haven't figured it out yet."

"Figured what out?" asked Dot, a little confused.

Wakko just kept on smiling. "Look," he said, pointing to a window that looked in to the room that they had just been in.

Dot obediently looked into the room. She didn't see much, except that Yakko was taking Hannah's papers from her and putting them in the file cabinet. Then he closed the door of the file cabinet. Hannah gave him a smile of approval.

That's when Dot noticed something different. When Yakko smiled back, there was something familiar about that smile, and that look in his eyes. Dot sometimes caught Yakko looking at her or Wakko with that same look. She suddenly understood.

"Yakko's in love with Hello Nurse," said Wakko simply.

"Yeah, I see that now," said Dot. She grinned. "Didn't Yakko say once that he'd never fall in love?"

Wakko grinned back and nodded. "Yeah, looks like he's eating his words."

Dot sighed. "That is kinda sad, though."

Wakko looked a little confused. "Why is it sad?"

"It's unrequited, isn't it?"

Wakko understood. "Yeah. I don't even think that Hello Nurse knows about it."

"But if she did… do you think that she'd love him back?"

"I doubt it. Yakko's eleven years old. And how old is HN? Twenty-five, at least? I mean, come on."

Dot nodded. "You're right… it's still sorta sad though. Wakko? What are you thinking about now, you philosopher?"

Wakko frowned and remained silent for a moment. When he spoke, it was in typical short, to the point Wakko style, and yet it wasn't; it was frustratingly vague. All he said was, "There's something about Hello Nurse that I haven't figured out yet." He then left the room, and Dot quickly followed him.

…………

The next morning, Dot woke up even earlier than usual. She was usually the first one up anyway, but her excitement woke her even sooner than usual. The show started _today_!

She changed quickly out of her nightgown and dressed in a red T-shirt and a denim skirt, obviously not wearing the show clothes, as WB was afraid that she'd get them dirty or something. However, they let her wear the flower scrunchie, and she did, tying it around her ears.

Dot pulled out a cherry Pop-Tart from the cabinet and munched on it on the way down from the water tower, not wanting to wait for anything, for some unknown reason. But why not? This was going to be the best day of her—

SNATCH!

Dot didn't even have time to scream for help, as the first thing her captor did was stick duct tape over her mouth. Then he tied her hands and feet together with a poky, itchy rope. "I'm sorry, kid," he said to her. Dot threw him a nasty look, even though he actually did look slightly sorry. Tossed into the back seat in a way that left her laying down, Dot was unable to see just where she was being taken too.

She was almost glad of it.


	9. I Can't Think of a Title

Surprisingly, the drive didn't take very long. In fact, before she knew it, Dot's kidnapper was picking her up and carrying her through the door, past an assorted number of strange rooms, and into a laboratory

"I only got one, sir," The man who had kidnapped Dot, sounding terrified, deposited Dot on the floor next to some other guy who looked like a scientist.

The scientist sighed. "That's alright. You can get the other two later." He looked at Dot. "I'm sorry we had to tie you up, but I was afraid that you might be a bit wild. You may take her to her cell now, Michael."

Michael looked a little confused, but obediently picked up Dot and brought her into one of the other strange rooms and set her down gently in a cell, pulling the duct tape off of her mouth.

"What the heck's going on here?" shrieked Dot instantly. "Why did you kidnap me? Who's the scientist guy? And you'd better let me out of here right now, or I'll… I'll make you pay, you hear?"

Michael untied Dot's feet and hands. "I'm sorry. Honestly, I didn't want to capture you. But when Clarence—that's the scientist's name, Clarence McCall—saw some commercial for your TV show, I guess, it sounded like he was about to explode and he ordered me to get you three right away. Frankly, I'm surprised he didn't rip you to shreds when I brought you to him. He really did sound like you wanted to kill you three."

"But if you didn't want to capture me, then why did you?" asked Dot.

"Because," said Michael, "I'm too afraid of what he might do to me. He's a mad man."

Dot sighed and rolled her eyes. "This is insane. Still, I'd better think fast about some way to get out of here."

"And I'd better go get the other two," said Michael. Dot gave him a confused look, then an angry one in realization.

"You'd better keep your hands off of my brothers! You hear me?"

"I have to get them, sweetheart, Clarence ordered me," said Michael. He closed the cell door, locked it, then left.

Dot slumped against the wall, pouting and furiously trying to think of a way out of there.

…………

"Hey, earth to Wakko. It's 10:30. Don'tcha want to get up?"

Wakko stirred, groaned, and pulled the covers over his head in annoyance. Yakko sighed and shook his head. "Wake up, sleepyhead. It's our opening day, so to speak! Come on and get some breakfast. Dot must've been around the studios ten times by now."

_Why does she always leave so early?_ thought Wakko from underneath his covers. _Can't she wait for us?_

"Because she hates spending all day in bed, unlike some people I know. You would be sleeping til noon if I didn't wake you up."

_That was the plan_, muttered Wakko, reluctantly forcing himself out of bed_. So what do you want to do today?_

Yakko shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe I can go see what HN is doing…"

Wakko grinned. _I don't know. Why don't you go ask her? While you're at it, you might want to take her into your arms and kiss her, and maybe tell her that you're madly in love with her?_

Yakko sighed. "I knew that you were gonna figure it out pretty soon."

_Pretty soon?_ Wakko barked out an audible laugh. _Don't I remember you saying that you'd never fall in love?_

"I was like nine years old then! I was a little kid!"

_But Yakko, I'm nine. Do you think that I'm a little kid?_

Yakko sighed. "Let me rephrase that. I was nine, but I wasn't really a little kid. I had been through too much to be called a little kid. And you are very mature for your age."

_Yeah, just like you were. _Wakko smiled and finished pulling on his clothes._ Let's go find Dot and figure out something to do._

"Yeah… like pick lint out of our belly buttons."

…………

Unfortunately, the belly button lint picking would have to wait. Try as they might, Yakko and Wakko couldn't find Dot anywhere.

"We've asked everyone and no one knows where she is!" cried Yakko. "This isn't like her!"

"For once, your paranoia seems to be right," said Wakko, also sounding worried. "Where could she be?"

Yakko didn't answer. Wakko followed his gaze and saw a man neither had seen before. They didn't know it, but it was Michael.

Yakko was about to ask Michael who he was, but Michael seemed to be the only person on earth faster than Yakko's tongue, grabbing them by the wrists before either could utter a syllable.. "Hey, what's the matter with you!" cried Yakko, trying to pry Michael's fingers off of his wrist. "Put us down!"

Wakko had no time for talking. Strategically, he kicked Michael in the gut with gusto. "Oooommmpphhh!" cried Michael, dropping Yakko and Wakko like stones. The brothers frantically scrambled up and ran around a corner.

Michael quickly got to his feet and, seeing their two tails whip around the corner, wildly grabbed for both of them. Only one tail—Wakko's—was snatched, but Michael decided not to risk it by trying to grab the other one, and whisked Wakko into his care before Yakko could grab them.

But Yakko wasn't far behind them.

…………

Wakko didn't struggle against Michael, his incredible ability to read emotions again serving him well. Somehow he knew that Michael was just a pawn in some evil plan.

_And there's the evil mastermind himself, _thought Wakko. It only took one glance at Clarence to know that this guy was slimier than a politician.

"You fool!" spat Clarence to Michael. "You didn't put duct tape on his mouth or tie him up or anything! Oh well," he said, putting on an incredibly fake smile and looking at Wakko.

Wakko knew that, in reality, this mad scientist wanted to rip him apart right then. He scowled at Clarence angrilly.

"Put him in the cell with the girl," said Clarence, dismissing them with a wave of his hand.

"Then… then do you want me to get the last one?" asked Michael shakily.

"No," said Clarence. "I think that he'll come here anyway."

"…Okay," said Michael, very confused. He led Wakko away.

Michael immediately started apologizing as soon as they were out of the laboratory—and thus out of Clarence's earshot. "I'm real sorry about this, and I don't want to do this, but—"

"I understand," said Wakko instantly.

"What was that he said, about the other just coming here?"

Wakko sighed in sad realization. "Yakko isn't just going to sit and wait for us. He's going to try to rescue us."

"Well, I'll put you in the cell with the little girl… your sister," said Michael.

At that time, Dot was pacing the cell and muttering under her breath how she was going to get out of there. "Hey," said Michael suddenly, "you've got company." He unlocked the cell door and led Wakko in.

"Wakko!" cried Dot. Relieved to see each other, the two siblings embraced tightly.

After a few moments, Wakko let go of Dot and turned to Michael. "Can't you let us out of here?"

"I can't. I'm too scared of what Clarence'll do to me."

"Are you afraid that he'll kill you?" asked Wakko.

"No, I don't think he'd do something _that_ drastic."

"Okay then, he'll fire you."

Michael nodded glumly.

Dot put her hands on her hips. "And then you'll get away from this awful job."

Michael thought about that for awhile. "You have a good point there," he said. He reached for his keys and unlocked the door. "Now let's get you guys out of here."

…………

Meanwhile, Yakko was walking around the lab, looking for his brother and sister. He, of course, was too sneaky to let something like a car get the best of him. He had grabbed onto the back and jumped on. He had meant to follow Wakko and Michael, but they got in the door to the laboratory too fast and the door was self-locking. So he spent the next fifteen minutes looking around for an open window.

His search was successful. He squeezed in the small window and stealthily searched for his siblings. And he found them too, when he was up on some balcony and they were walking below him.

"This place looks like a dump," muttered Wakko.

"Smells like a dump too," mumbled Dot.

"Hey!" hollered Yakko from his lofty perch. "How's the weather down there?"

"_Yakko?_" Wakko and Dot craned their necks to see their brother.

"'Tis most certainly me!" Yakko cried triumphantly, leaping down nimbly to his siblings' level.

"Shh, Yakko, be quiet!" whispered Dot urgently. "That mad scientist guy could be anywhere, and we're trying to escape!

"Ummm…" Michael suddenly said. The Warners spun around. True to Dot's warning, there was Clarence.

"Children," he said, sounding almost gentle, "I am sorry for locking you up, but I was afraid that you might be crazy. I am so glad that I found you, after all these years!"

"What do you mean?" asked Dot.

"You see, children, I had always wanted children of my own. But I wasn't married, so I felt very lonely. Suddenly I realized that, hey, I had a laboratory, I could create children! So I created you," he said, pointing at Yakko. "I was so happy! After two years, however, I thought that if I was so happy with one, why not two? So I created you," he said, pointing at Wakko. "But I also wanted a little girl. So, two years later, I created you!" he said, this time pointing at Dot. "This was what I had always wanted: a family of my own! But shortly after I created you, a fire destroyed parts of my lab. During the confusion, I lost you. I looked all over for you, but I couldn't find you. I feared you were dead! But just now, I saw the commercial for your new TV show, and I knew that you were indeed alive!"

Michael looked confused, as he was so often throughout this day. Dot looked a bit confused, but mostly happy, thinking, _Finally! Finally I found my parent!_

Yakko, however, looked a little confused, but mostly mad. And Wakko looked furious.

"He's lying," hissed Wakko. And Yakko and Dot knew that Wakko always knew if someone was lying or if someone was telling the truth.

"He is indeed lying, Wakko," said a new voice. The Warners, Michael, and Clarence turned around to see who said that. It was another man who seemed to have just entered.

Clarence glared at him. "Victor, what the hell are you doing here?"

This Victor fellow gave Clarence, if it was possible, an even darker glare. "What the hell are you still doing on this _planet?"_ Looking towards the Warners, his eyes softened. "Oh Yakko, look how much you've grown. Why, you're practically an adult now. And Wakko, you can talk! And just look at you, Dot. You were just a baby when I last saw you." He paused for a moment, looking unusually grave. "You need to learn the truth."

"Can he be trusted?" asked Yakko, turning to Wakko, even though he had a feeling that he could.

"Yes," said Wakko. "He'll tell the truth."

"Here it is," said the man. And his story began.


	10. The Truth

(Author's note: This chapter will just be written as if you were there on February 1st, 1982. On another note, I'm sorry it's taken me awhile to get this chapter up, but I'm a fourteen-year-old girl, so that basically means that I'm very busy. I'm involved in school, band, piano lessons, church handbell and singing choir, Job's Daughters, and tons and tons of homework. Also the recent hijacked planes deal hasn't got me in the best of moods. So I write whenever I can. Oh well, the story must go on. Sorry for me blabbing.)

"Today's the day."

A young man named Steve jerked up from his chair and looked at Victor, the speaker. "Huh? What day?" asked Steve.

Victor sighed. "You know, how Clarence has been going on and on about his new intelligent species that he wants to create?"

"Oh! _That_ day." Steve gave Victor a purely curious look. "So how many does he plan to make?"

"He was telling me three, all two years and one month apart. But that's not important know." Victor looked pale. "What is important is what he plans to do with these creatures."

Steve looked skeptical. "What's that?"

"He's going to make money off of them. He'll start when the oldest is six years old. He'll say, 'Look at this creature I've created!' He'll sell tickets for people to see it. And he's going to do testing on it, too."

"What about before they are six?" asked Steve.

Victor sighed. "That might be the worse part of all. Clarence calls it 'Preparation for stardom'. I call it abuse. He's going to, basically, treat them like punching bags."

"You're kidding!" cried Steve, now looking completely horrified. "We have to do something!"

"I already have," said Victor. "And I hope that it's at least something. You see, he was telling me about his powders. You know about the powders, right?"

"Yeah, all of those different personality trait ones?"

"Yeah, those. Anyway, he told me that he would put in obedience powder, so they will obey him; seriousness powder, so they will not be jumping off the walls; and intelligence. So what I did last night was I put free spirit powder into the obedience powder. I mean, there's still obedience powder in there, so it'll be at least willing to listen. But I hope that the free spirit will cause it to resist Clarence."

"What about the seriousness?" asked Steve.

"I dumped quite a bit of it out, and then filled it up again with silliness. I mean, I don't want these creatures to be downright crazy, but I think that if they're at least a little wacky, it'll drive Clarence nuts. Those two traits, along with the intelligence, which I didn't mess with, will make a very interesting creature indeed."

"Victor! Steve! Come in and witness a miracle!" Clarence suddenly shrieked from his lab. His two assistants sighed and walked into the lab.

The only reason, really, that Victor and Steve stayed with this crazy guy was because they felt that they had to. They had messed with his experiments that could have caused great harm, thus probably saving many lives. Don't get me wrong, they hated the job, but they had to do something.

Clarence had that mad, evil look in his eyes that Victor and Steve were so accustomed to. He turned on the machine and dumped in what he thought was seriousness powder, and then he dumped in what he thought was obedience powder. Finally, the intelligence, since he wanted to be known for making intelligent species.

The machine jumped and jolted violently. Then, out of a small hole in the side, a little body tumbled out.

He had completely black fur, except for his feet and face, which were white. He also had large black eyes, a red nose, two long, floppy ears, and a long black tail. The little baby looked around at his new surroundings. "It's alive, it's alive, it's ALIVE!" cried Clarence, in his best Dr. Frankenstein imitation.

The baby then opened his mouth.

"Wevu nug miku laq zunt gu?" he asked.

"That's amazing," marveled Victor. "Most babies don't learn how to make sounds until about six months old, much less talk gibberish."

Clarence was obviously also marveled, but not because the child was talking. He couldn't care less, in fact. He picked up the baby and looked him over. The baby, in obvious objection to being held by the mad scientist, cried out, "Quaz bip ger yur ghte!"

Clarence scowled. "I can tell that we're going to have trouble keeping your mouth shut," he snarled. He tossed the baby carelessly to Steve. Steve made a dive and caught the baby without hurting him. "Take him to the back room and feed him a little. And—" Clarence's voice suddenly got low and dangerous, "—don't you dare treat him special, or buy him disgusting little toys, or name him. We don't want him to feel that people are going to take care of him. He's a science experiment, not the child you never had, or whatever."

Steve and Victor nodded, even though they both knew that they sure as hell wouldn't abide to those rules. Once they left the lab, carrying the baby, Steve asked, "We're not really going to neglect him, are we?"

"Of course not," said Victor. "I'll try to raise his as normally as I can. I don't care what Clarence says, he's like our child now. And we're going to give him the happiest upbringing that we possibly can."

"Bix run yaf lki," said the baby solemnly.

"Be quiet, you little yakker," said Victor teasingly. "That mouth of yours almost got you into trouble."

"Neetee puim cuafoo."

"I'm telling you, Yakko, you're going to get in a lot of trouble if you do that in front of Clarence."

"Uy mug hyhyre io."

By now the three had reached the back room. "Here, Yakko, you take this bottle and drink out of it," said Victor. He set the baby down on a table. "I'll get a cradle for you sometime."

"That's not really what you're going to call him, is it?" Steve said suddenly.

Victor turned around, surprised. "What?"

"We're not really going to call him Yakko, are we?"

"Of course not. I'm just calling him Yakko because that's what he is. We'll give him a more normal name than Yakko."

"Too late," muttered Steve.

"What do you mean?" asked Victor.

Steve said nothing. Instead, he walked over to the table and picked the baby up. "Say that word," he commanded. "Say that word that you don't want this baby to be called."

"What? Yakko?" asked Victor.

The baby turned his head towards him.

Steve laughed. "He thinks that's his name."

"Well, I'll think of another one. Trust me."

…………

But as you can guess, the name Yakko stuck, since Victor was having a hard time coming up with names and it was just customary to call the little chatterbox Yakko. And so he was named.

Steve and Victor bought toys and other things for Yakko, which he relished. They took very good care of him, in between Clarence's daily "Preparation for stardom".

Yakko said his first real word when he was only three months old. He was still too young to even sit up by himself yet. But as he lay in his cradle, the meaning of that word just suddenly came to him. Oh, how pleased Victor and Steve would be if he actually talked the same way they did! "Cradle!" said Yakko proudly.

Victor and Steve were eating lunch at the time, and when they heard Yakko's word they turned around in shock. "What did you say?" asked Steve in shock.

"Cradle," repeated Yakko, a huge grin on his face.

"It's his first real word, Victor! His first real word!" cried Steve. Victor ran up to the cradle and picked up Yakko.

"You're such a smart little boy, Yakko!" he said. Yakko beamed with pride.

…………

By the time Yakko was six months old, before he could really crawl well, he knew fluent English. Victor and Steve had told him not to talk in front of Clarence, since that would get him into really big trouble.

"But I wanna talk in front of him," said Yakko, in perfectly understandably English. He sounded more like a six-year-old than a six-month-old. "Somebody should tell him that he shouldn't beat me up like that!"

Victor took a deep breath. "You know, you're right, Yakko. So tomorrow, talk to him. Say whatever you want to."

The next day, when Yakko sat in front of Clarence, awaiting his daily beating, Clarence said to him, "You know, at first I thought you weren't going to work out. I mean, you never knew how to keep your mouth shut. But for the past three months, you haven't said a word! I think that you just might be able to keep that trap of yours shut."

"Think again, dummy," muttered Yakko.

"WHAT?" cried Clarence, enraged. "What did you just call me!"

"I called you a dummy," said Yakko. "And I'll do it again: You're a dummy!"

Furiously, Clarence grabbed for Yakko's tail. Yakko tried to get away, but since he was only six months old, he couldn't crawl very well yet. Clarence grabbed Yakko's tail, held him up in the air, and slapped his face a couple of times. "Now get!" he cried, literally throwing Yakko out of the door.

Hearing the thud, Steve and Victor raced to the door of the lab. Yakko lay crumpled in a heap. "It didn't work," he whispered, a large tear running down his face.

…………

It was March 1st, 1984.

"Why are you so excited, Victor?" asked Yakko. Now, at the age of two years and one month old, he could walk and do most things by himself, making him nearly self-sufficient.

Victor turned and looked Yakko in the eyes. "You're going to have a baby brother," he said.

Yakko knew what a brother was. Steve had explained the mother, father, sister, brother concept to him when he was little. "How do you know it'll be a boy and not a girl?" he demanded.

"Because Clarence wants all three of you to be boys," said Victor. "In another two years, you'll get another baby brother, and then Steve and I'll get you out of here."

"Why not now?" asked Yakko.

"We want you and your brothers to be together," said Victor. "I'd better go and get your brother…"

Steve was already waiting for him in the lab. "Where's Clarence?" asked Victor.

"I don't know, I haven't—"

"**_I'VE GOT IT_**!" Clarence suddenly cried as he burst into the lab, causing his assistants to jump about two feet in the air. "I must not've put enough seriousness powder in the first one, that worthless chatterbox!" Clarence dumped a ton of the powder into the machine.

"Uh oh," whispered Victor.

"What?" Steve whispered back.

"Most of the stuff in that one is silliness powder. I think that Yakko probably got most of the seriousness."

"Oh!" whispered Steve in shock. "This kid's going to be insane."

Clarence added the other powders. The machine rattled and roared. And out from the hole in the side came another creature. He looked quite a bit like Yakko, in fact, but was slightly different. The baby, just as Yakko had, looked around at his surroundings. He eyed a bottle that Steve had brought in to feed the new baby with. The baby propped up on his hands and knees and crawled over to the bottle.

"Amazing!" cried Victor. "He can already crawl! He'll be walking in no time!"

The baby suckled from the bottle, and looked to be very content. That was when Clarence had to pick him up. The baby gave him a look of utter disgust, situated the bottle in his tiny hands, and squirted him.

"**_AAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGHHHHHHH_**!" cried Clarence, dropping the baby in shock. Instead of crying, the baby gave a light chuckle. It was the first sound that the otherwise silent baby had made.

"_THIS KID IS WACKO_!" cried Clarence, furiously wiping the milk out of his eyes. "_GET HIM OUT OF MY SIGHT_!"

Steve grabbed the baby and ran with Victor into the back room before Clarence's wrath was unleashed.

Yakko, whose ear was pressed against the laboratory door, was grinning. "I heard it all. It seemed to have gone well."

"Yes, your brother certainly left an impression," said Steve quietly. "Now what should we name him?"

"But I thought he was named already!" cried Yakko. "Didn't Clarence name him?"

"Yakko," said Victor patiently, "you know that Clarence didn't name you. He doesn't even want you two to have names."

"But I heard him!" cried Yakko. "He said, 'This kid is wacko!'"

"Yakko, 'wacko' is an adjective that means crazy," said Steve. "He was describing him, not naming him."

"Hmm," said Victor, "Yakko and Wakko. I kinda like that."

"You can't be serious," said Steve, blinking.

But Yakko was already tugging at his arms, wanting to get his first look at his baby brother. "Let me see him!" cried Yakko.

Steve lowered his arm. The little baby Wakko was snuggled up in his arms, and was asleep. Actually, he looked rather dead. But he confirmed himself to be alive when he opened his eyes and turned his head to look at his big brother.

"May I hold him?" asked Yakko gently. Steve looked a little hesitant, but obeyed.

Yakko held Wakko in his arms. "Hey, Wakko," he said quietly, "it's nice to meet you. I'm your big brother Yakko. I'm going to take real good care of you."

Wakko made no noise, but smiled.

…………

Just as Victor predicted, Wakko was a very early walker. In fact, he was walking by the age of three months. He followed Yakko everywhere, causing Victor to remark that Wakko was like Yakko's second shadow. However, very much unlike Yakko, his two shadows were silent. The only time Wakko even made sounds was when he laughed, and it was a very quiet laugh. Even when he cried, all that happened was that his eyes quietly filled with tears and they slowly and silently rolled down his cheeks.

Of course, now Clarence had two "Preparations for stardom" to deal with. Yakko, already the protective big brother, asked Victor and Steve if Wakko was going to go through what he did.

"No," Victor said gently, "we'll make sure that he leaves both you and your brother alone."

But Yakko found out the truth when Wakko was six months old.

Yakko was bouncing a ball against the wall one day when it bounced out the door and towards the lab. He sighed and went chasing after it. When he ran by the lab, thought, he could hear Clarence saying, "—and I'll rip you to shreds, you little reject—"

Yakko stopped suddenly and stuck his head in the door. Clarence was tall and menacing over Wakko, who looked meek and helpless like a schoolboy who had just gotten into trouble. He grabbed Wakko's wrist roughly and stuck his face.

"Hey!" screamed Yakko, very angrily. "You leave my brother alone!"

Clarence and Wakko turned around and saw Yakko with a huge scowl on his face. "First and foremost, he is not your brother. He is no more your brother than these powders. I created the powders, and I created this reject here. And secondly, no, I will not leave him alone."

"I said," cried Yakko, "leave him alone!"

"Listen, you worthless chatterbox, if you don't shut your yap I'll hafta beat you senseless, you hear? This is your last chance: GET OUTTA HERE!"

"Not unless he comes with me," said Yakko.

Clarence grabbed Yakko by the neck and snarled, "I'm getting real tired of that tongue of yours. Lemme put it this way, who would you rather I pulverize, you or the reject here?"

"Me," said Yakko without hesitation.

At that, Clarence roughly threw Yakko on the ground. As Yakko lifted his face, trying to blink away the tears, his eyes caught Wakko's.

And then… Yakko blinked in confusion. Wakko hadn't said anything, and yet Yakko could somehow "hear" deep inside of him, _Just leave, Yakko. I can take care of myself._

"No you can't," said Yakko without thinking.

Clarence looked confused. "I can't what?" he hollered.

Still silent to all but his brother, Wakko's eyes grew wide as he shot another thought to Yakko. _Really, Yakko, it isn't that bad. I can get outta here fine. Don't get yourself hurt because of me!_

"But you're only a baby…"

"What the hell is going on here?" cried Clarence. He grabbed Yakko and threw him against the wall. "Now both of you get outta here. I don't wanna see your faces for a real long time." He shoved Yakko out of the door. Wakko scrambled to follow.

_Why did he let us go…?_ Wakko looked behind him in confusion.

"I don't know, but we were real lucky…" Yakko suddenly grabbed Wakko and hugged him tightly. "Are you okay?"

_Yeah… I'll be okay. Let's go find Victor and Steve._

Their two guardians were talking in the back room when Yakko stumbled in, looking defeated. "Oh, Yakko, what happened?" asked Victor in sympathy.

"I'm just tryin' to be a good big brother," said Yakko, finally letting his tears break through. His voice was constantly interrupted by big, gasping sobs. "I don't want him to treat Wakko like that. I don't mind so much with me, but Wakko doesn't deserve it."

Victor was touched by what Yakko had said. "You are a good big brother," he said to Yakko. Yakko sniffled and looked at Wakko.

_Yeah, you are, but you're gonna get yourself killed,_ thought Wakko.

"Me? _I'm_ gonna get myself killed? Why don't you think about yourself! You're only six months old!"

_Oh, just shut up,_ thought Wakko, chuckling slightly.

"It's not funny," said Yakko. Steve and Victor looked at him in amazement, realizing that he could read Wakko's thoughts.

…………

It was April 1st, 1986.

"Hey, guess what, Wakko?"

_What?_

"We're gonna get a baby brother."

_Really?_ thought Wakko. He grinned at his older brother. _Does that mean I get to be a big brother, just like you?_

Yakko smiled and nodded. "Victor, when's he gonna be born?" he asked, turning to his guardian.

"Very soon," said Victor, who was only half listening.

_Why doesn't he want to make a girl?_ asked Wakko.

"Hmm, I don't know… hey Victor, why doesn't Clarence want a little girl?"

"Huh?" said Victor, jumping a little in shock. "Oh. I don't know. He's crazy, he's a drunk, I think that he had an unpleasant childhood, who knows why he thinks the way he does? Maybe he's sexist."

"What does sexist mean?" asked Yakko.

"It means not treating boys and girls the same. You know, as though boys are better than girls."

"Oh," said Yakko. "That's silly. I'd like a sister. But oh well, let's get my new brother born so I can meet him!"

Victor chuckled, in spite of himself, and left the room. _Very soon I will have to give them up,_ he thought sadly. _Once the last one is born… they need to get out of here._

He almost ran into Clarence. "Oh, hello, sir," said Victor.

"Yeah, hi, blah, blah, blah. I found the answer to our problem!"

"What problem?"

"The creatures! The first one is a worthless chatterbox, and the second one's a reject, too stupid to even talk. I don't know what's better, not talking at all, or not knowing when to keep your mouth shut. Neither of them will obey me! But I came up with the solution. I'll put 'no free will' powder in this one! Once I go to the bathroom, I will be ready!" Then he turned the corner.

Victor knew what he had to do, and that he had to do it fast. He raced to the lab and grabbed the 'no free will' powder. He quickly unscrewed the lid and dumped out the ingredients. Then he frantically scanned the other powders to see what he could add. Finally he found two that he added. The first, and the one that he put the most in, was cuteness. He figured that if a cute baby was made, then it wouldn't be too much of a hassle. But this child also needed some defense mechanism. So Victor added in a couple pinches of aggressiveness. He hoped that that would kick in whenever the child was abused.

He quickly set everything back up, and not a moment too soon, for just then Clarence came in, followed by Steve. Clarence didn't talk, and his eyes had that wild, dangerous look to them as he furiously added the ingredients to the machine. The machine then jumped up and down frantically in all directions, and for the third time in four years, a baby creature came out of the hole in the side.

You could plainly see that the cuteness potion had done its job well. In fact, to perfect the cute job, the baby was by far the smallest of the three. "Ohhh, what a cute little dot!" cooed Steve.

But Clarence was fuming. His face was literally turning red. Taking large, gasping breaths between each word, he yelled, "IT…IS…A…_GIRL_!"

"Are you sure? How could it be—" Victor stopped and looked at the baby. He, _she_, was definitely missing that distinguishing characteristic of males, if you know what I mean.

Enraged—that is an understatement, I don't know if there are words in the English language to describe Clarence at the moment—Clarence grabbed the baby. The baby, obviously upset to being picked up by such a vile man, clamped her two teeth down on his hand. Clarence cried out in pain, and drop kicked her right into one of the shelves. The shelf came crashing down, and the baby girl and many powders came crashing down with it.

The little girl's lip trembled for a moment, then she wailed. "WAAAAAHHHHHH!"

"Kill her," Clarence hissed. "I don't ever wanna see her again. Oooh, I need a drink." And with that Clarence stormed out of the room.

Once Clarence was gone, Steve picked up the crying baby and whispered to Victor, "What did you put in her that made her be a girl?"

"Well, I had to do something! I couldn't let her have no free will! So I added a mixture of cuteness and aggressiveness. But why would those make a little girl?"

"Well," said Steve, "girls are often cuter than boys, and they also are often more aggressive."

"Was Clarence even controlling the sex of the babies? I mean, there are a few more boys born than girls born, so statistically, if three children are born two are boys and one is a girl. Maybe because today is April Fool's Day. How would I know?"

By that time they had reached the back room. Yakko was standing by the door. "What happened?" he demanded. "What happened to my brother?"

"It's not your brother, Yakko, it's your sister," said Steve.

"Sister?" asked Yakko, in quiet shock.

"Yes, there was some sort of mistake."

Yakko and Wakko were silent for awhile. So were Steve and Victor. Finally Yakko asked, "So what's her name?"

"If we don't do something with her soon, she'll be dead before she gets a name. What did you call her, Steve? A dot?"

"Yeah," said Steve. "So let's name her Dot."

"Steve, I have to talk with you," said Victor. He placed Dot, who had quieted down, into the cradle and led Steve to a corner of the room. "We have to get them out of here today."

"I know, I know, and I hate to lose them. But what will we do with them? Should we raise them in our own houses?"

"No, no," said Victor, shaking his head sadly. "Clarence would suspect that. And nobody would want to adopt three intelligent… puppy-dog like things. I think…they're just going to have to take care of themselves."

"Are you joking?" cried Steve, then quieted down a bit. "The oldest one if four years old. Four years old! There is no possible way for a four-year-old to take care of himself, much less a two-year-old and a newborn baby!"

At that point Dot started to cry again.

"Somebody'd better go feed her," muttered Steve.

"Somebody is," said Victor.

Victor looked out the door. Yakko had grabbed the bottle and was now giving it to Dot. "Here you go," he said softly and gently. "This is what you wanted, isn't it? I haven't introduced myself yet, I guess. I'm Yakko, and I'm one of your big brothers. And this is Wakko," he said, as Wakko walked up to get a look at his baby sister. "He's your other big brother. He can't talk, though. And we're both gonna take real good care of you." He picked Dot up and gently rocked and cradled her. Soon Dot was asleep.

Victor turned back to Steve. "I know that Yakko doesn't deserve that burden, but I know that he can do it. Besides, it's the only way. They have to go tonight."

"Yeah," said Steve, looking shaken. "Tonight."

…………

Who knows how the fire started. The important thing is that it started. Parts of the lab were burning to the ground. And Steve and Victor saw their chance to get the children out of there. It could very well look that they had been killed or lost in the fire. Once they were all safely outside, Victor motioned for Yakko to follow him. So Yakko, holding Dot in one arm and holding Wakko's hand with the other, obeyed.

Once outside, Victor took a deep breath and said, "You have to run away, Yakko."

"Why?" asked Yakko, his eyes growing wide.

"Because," said Victor, "he's going to kill Dot, and probably you and Wakko too. You take good care of your brother and sister, you hear me?"

Yakko nodded, slightly dumbfounded. "Come on, sibs," he whispered.

And Yakko, Wakko, and Dot vanished into the night.

Steve stood by Victor, silhouetted by the flames. "I hope they'll be alright," he whispered.

"I _know_ they'll be alright," said Victor.


	11. Ouch That Hurts

"That's not true," whispered Dot. "That can't be true." She looked at Wakko.

Wakko sighed and shook his head. "I'm sorry, Dot, but he's telling the truth."

Dot knew that Wakko knew when someone was telling the truth, but she still wanted a second opinion. "Yakko?" she asked.

Yakko sighed too and gave Dot a sad gaze. "Trust me, I would much rather believe Clarence than Victor. But… I remember this place. I can remember… getting beat up."

Wakko and Dot just stared at him with their mouths open. Finally Wakko said, "I knew you were hiding something."

"Why didn't you tell us?" demanded Dot angrily.

"I didn't want to shatter your false hopes," said Yakko, looking defeated. "I thought that we would never find out, anyway."

After all of this, Clarence finally spoke. "Victor, I fired you years ago." He sounded on the verge of blowing up from anger.

"Of course," said Victor, sounding angry himself. "You knew what we did. You knew that Steve and I were taking care of them, treating them like normal people and trying to raise them lovingly, when you would probably have killed them by now!"

Dot could feel herself getting aggressive. _Thanks to the aggression that Victor put into me to save my life,_ thought Dot.

"You want to kill me, don't you?" she asked Clarence menacingly. She quietly, slowly stormed up to him. "You want to tear me apart into little itty bitty pieces, don't ya? Well, I dare ya. I dare ya ta even lay a finger on me. I'm indestructible."

Quite suddenly Clarence grabbed Dot by the collar of her shirt. Dot drew in her breath in fright, realizing how stupid and foolish she had been. "No, you're not," hissed Clarence.

"Stupid aggression…" Dot didn't know what to do. What she did next was simply impulse: she bit Clarence on the hand.

"_Aaarrrggghhh_!" screamed Clarence. Then he glared at Dot. "You haven't changed on bit, have you, you little mistake?" He then punted her right into the very same shelf that she had been punted into seven going on eight years ago. Dot crashed into the powders and chemicals on the shelf, then fell off in a heap. If she hadn't have been hurt she would've gotten back up and fought Clarence. But her whole body was aching in a way it never had before.

This was all that her brothers could stand. In a blind rage, Yakko and Wakko charged their creator. Wakko got to him first, and kicked him in the balls.

" OooooomphAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" cried Clarence in pain. He flew across the room and landed on the floor painfully. Yakko was standing over him, glaring at him. Clarence smiled. It wasn't an evil smile, either.

"You were the closest," he said, "the closest to what I originally had in mind. Not like the stupid reject or the mistake girl. We could be great together. I will someday, very soon, be powerful. I could make you my assistant. I would treat you wonderfully. What do you say?"

"No, I don't think so," said Yakko, and stepped on his face.

In a rage, Clarence jumped up and grabbed Yakko. Then he threw him over to the shelf where he had thrown Dot. Yakko recovered from the throw, though, and bounced off of the wall. It was more than the shelf could bear, though, so it fell. The long, narrow edge of it hit the ground, and hit precisely on Dot's stomach. No one noticed, however. Dot didn't cry out when it happened, since she was already so knocked out anyway, but the pain was even greater. When she tried to lift it up or move out of it, it hurt too much to move. But when she just laid there, that was extremely painful too.

At this time Clarence had managed to pin Yakko and Wakko to the wall. They struggled to get free but were unsuccessful. "You should have complied, you worthless chatterbox," he hissed to Yakko. "But I'll still be fair: You'll be the last to die!"

"Oh yes, very fair," hissed Yakko, his voice full of contempt. "Apparently you don't have siblings, or if you do you don't care about them as much as I do, because if you did you'd know that forcing me to watch would be the worst torture imaginable."

"They are **_not_** your siblings! If we called them 'siblings' then we could call this chair here your sibling also. I made it in high school carpentry class. And I made you here!"

He then got up to where Dot was trapped underneath the shelf. "I bet you knew that you'd be first, mistake," he hissed. He threw the shelf off of her.

Of course, the smart thing to do in this situation would be to either "fight or flee", but Dot, after being crushed underneath the shelf for so long, could do nothing but clutch her stomach and cough.

Clarence gave her no time to catch her breath. Grabbing Dot roughly by the shirt collar, he threw her bodily against the wall, breaking her ribcage if it wasn't already broken. Then he went to her face, and gave her about 6 black eyes, even though she only had 2 eyes.

Dot's vision became a blur. _Finally I'm either falling unconscious, or I'm dying,_ she thought. _At least the pain is gone._

Her vision continued to fade. _So this is what dying is like,_ was her last thought before she slipped into unconsciousness.

…………

By that time Yakko and Wakko were on Clarence and were giving him all they had. Clarence was still beating up on poor little Dot, to make sure she was good and dead. After a few seconds, however, he turned his rage on the brothers.

Clarence roughly threw them off of him and scrambled to his desk. He reached into his drawer and pulled out…

"Wakko, he's got a KNIFE!" shrieked Yakko. "A butcher knife! He's gonna butcher us!"

In a mad rage, Clarence swung the knife at Wakko. Wakko ducked. Then he swung at Yakko. Yakko nimbly dodged him.

By now, Clarence was obviously insane, to put it lightly. He threw the knife, blade end first, not really aiming for anything. Unfortunately, from his viewpoint, he got positive results.

Yakko staggered back from a sudden pain, then realized that the knife had stabbed him in the stomach. He dumbly pulled the knife out. It was drenched in blood. His blood. That was when the full intensity of what had just happened hit Yakko.

He looked at his horrified brother. "Look, Wakko, that's my blood there…" His eyes glazed over and he fell backwards.

"Looks like I broke my promise," snarled Clarence. "I told him he'd be the last to die." He turned to Wakko, the only one still conscious. "But it looks like you have that privilege, reject."

Wakko was biting his tongue and his eyes were bulging. It almost looked like they were going to explode. Finally he screamed, "WHY YOU FILTHY, GOOD-FOR-NOTHING SON OF A BITCH!"

Ignoring the knife, Wakko lunged himself at Clarence. Never mind the knife; never mind that Wakko was only nine; never mind that Clarence was crazy and quite a big larger than Wakko was. He had very possibly just killed his siblings, the two most important people in Wakko's life, and now he was gonna—

"Clarence McCall, you're under arrest!"

Clarence stopped for just a second in shock. It was enough. The police, who Victor or Michael had obviously called during the commotion, rounded on Clarence, their guns pointed.

"I also called the ambulance," said Victor, with this icy look on his face, as though he couldn't believe and didn't want to believe what had just happened.

As the police handcuffed and lead Clarence away, he hissed to Wakko, "I'll get my hands on you later, you stupid reject."

"No you won't," said Wakko, sounding very brave. Then the police and Clarence left and the ambulance rescue crew arrived.

At that point Wakko completely broke down and cried. Not the tears rolling down his face cry that was the only way that he had ever cried before this, but a real sobbing, weeping cry where the tears just shot out of his eyes. It was the first time that he had ever cried like this.

Victor sat down by Wakko and hugged him. "I hope they'll be alright," he said.

"I hope so too," sobbed Wakko. "But they're hurt real bad…"

Victor took a deep breath and sighed. "Wakko, I could drive you to the hospital. If you don't mind, I'd like to talk with you."

Wakko became quiet for a moment. "Alright," he said, unshed tears still brimming in his eyes.

…………

The radio was turned off. The driver seemed hardly able to concentrate on his surroundings. And the passenger looked to be in a state of dumb shock.

Finally, Victor was able to speak.

"Wakko, you know that Steve and I loved you and your siblings like our own children. We hated to abandon you like that, but it was the only way." He paused for a moment. "Yakko did such a good job of raising you and Dot. I mean, think about it. He was only four years old, and he single handedly raised a two-year-old and a baby. A baby! People keep on talking about teen moms, how fourteen-year-olds can't take care of a baby, but a four-year-old! I just couldn't help thinking that you three had died."

"Sometimes we came awfully close," murmured Wakko, his voice hoarse and flat. 

"When I saw a commercial for your show, I knew instantly that it was you three. And I knew that if Clarence saw it, he would get you back at any cost. That's why I came." He was quiet for a moment, and then he spoke again. "I was amazed at what you three looked like. Yakko's almost an adolescent, but if I hadn't have know his age, I would have placed him at about fourteen years old. And Dot is such a beautiful little girl. And you, Wakko, you have grown a lot too, and you can talk…"

Wakko sighed and looked out of the window. "I hope they don't die," he whispered. "I love them, and I don't wanna be an only child."

Victor grimaced, unable to say anything.


	12. Live Life To Its Fullest

"What can I buy with this?"

The ice cream vendor looked down at the speaker. A little girl, who looked to be about two years old, and strangely enough looked like a sort of strange puppy dog, handed him a few coins. "You can by a regular sized ice cream cone," replied the vendor, counting the change.

"Alright," said Dot, thinking for a moment. Then she made her selection. "I'll take chocolate."

The vendor scooped up some ice cream and put it in a cone. "Here you go, sweetheart."

"Thank you," said Dot.

Dot was very happy, since she had found some change and was able to go buy something with it. She toddled over to where Yakko and Wakko were waiting for her.

While she toddled, she tripped on the curb. Her ice cream cone went flying and fell on a bald guy's head.

Six-year-old Yakko and four-year-old Wakko saw it, and were laughing so hard that tears were coming out of their eyes. Dot cried too, but out of humiliation and sadness over the loss of her ice cream.

"It's not funny!" she cried.

"Yes it is," said Wakko, still laughing.

"But you guys think everything's funny!" sobbed Dot.

Yakko stopped laughing, even though he was smiling. "Dot, you can either look at the world and be happy about it, or look at the world and be angry or sad about it. Which would you rather be, happy or angry?"

Dot dried her eyes. "Happy," she said without hesitation.

"Of course," said Yakko. "You can find something funny in almost anything."

That was when Dot, the current, seven-going-on-eight-year-old Dot, woke up.

Oh great. She was in a hospital bed, and what was more, she was attached to a ton of tubes, her head was wrapped up in some sort of bandage, she had casts on her left leg and right arm, she had some sort of brace on her collapsed chest… _I'm not in the best of shape,_ thought Dot with a sigh.

Hello Nurse was looking for something in the cabinet.

"Alright, how long've I been in here and what's my condition?" shrieked Dot.

"_Aaaaaahhh_!" shrieked Hello Nurse in surprise, the papers from the cabinet flying everywhere. "Oh, Dot, you're conscious."

"No, I'm unconscious, it just looks like I'm conscious," said Dot sarcastically.

Hello Nurse sighed. Dot could tell that something was really bothering her. "Well, you've been in here for two days. For awhile it looked as though we might lose you, but you made a strong recovery."

"What happened to Clarence?" demanded Dot.

"He was arrested," said Hello Nurse distractedly. Just then Scratchy stuck his head in the door.

"How is she?" he asked.

"She came to, sir," said Hello Nurse.

"Vell, she's finally awake!" he exclaimed. Then, from out in the waiting room, there was a sound that bore an uncanny resemblance to someone getting up from a chair so fast that the chair was knocked over.

Scratchy ran into the room. "Not yet, Vakko, she still hasn't fully recovered—"

"Aw, Scratchy, let him in," said Dot. "I'm fine, trust me."

Dot couldn't really see what was going on out there, but Scratchy must've let Wakko go, since he ran straight into the room. He stopped right by Dot's bed, and grabbed his wrists. "Man, that Scratchy has a death grip!" he said, rubbing his wrists.

Dot suddenly bolted straight up in bed, the realization of what happened finally hitting her, "Wakko, I almost **_died_**, didn't I?"

Wakko looked up at her with very sad eyes and nodded slowly. Dot felt like she was going to cry.

Dot felt as if she had swallowed sour milk. She tried to take a deep breath to calm her nerves, but this only succeeded in causing a sharp pain to run through her chest and stomach.

Then another thing hit her, and it was even more painful than realizing that she'd almost died. "Where's Yakko?" she asked, sounding almost afraid to find out.

She almost expected Wakko to pause dramatically. But Wakko wasn't that type of person. He said things straight.

"Clarence got him."

Dot sank back down into the bed. Finally she asked, barely audible, "Is he dead?"

"No," said Wakko, "not yet."

"Not yet?" cried Dot. "What, is he dying?"

"I don't know," admitted Wakko. He turned around. "Hello Nurse?"

"Huh? What?" jolted Hello Nurse, who obviously had been preoccupied in her own thoughts, whatever they were.

"What's Yakko's condition?" asked Wakko.

"Oh," said Hello Nurse. "Well, we're not really sure. He could go either way, honestly."

Dot sat up in bed again. "Well, I want to see him."

"I want to see him again, too," said Wakko.

"You've seen him?" asked Dot.

"Sure, I've known him for all my life."

"No, I mean here in the hospital."

"Yeah, of course. I would have been with you two all the time but the hospital personal thought that I was being too nosy and kicked me out."

Hello Nurse sighed. "This might be against the rules, but I really don't care. I'll get you a wheelchair, Dot."

"Maybe a stretcher would be best," said Dot, looking at her battered body.

However, to Dot's surprise, Hello Nurse removed the tubes. "I don't think you need these anymore," she said. She then gently lifted Dot out of her bed and into a nearby wheelchair.

Wakko walked alongside the wheelchair. "So, what happened to him?" asked Dot.

"Clarence stabbed him," said Wakko. "No, correction—he did a knife-throwing act. I guess he was trying to hit me, but he must've missed. I mean, he did say that Yakko would be the last to die." He was quiet for a moment, then asked, "What's it like to be unconscious?"

"It's really weird," said Dot. "I'm getting beat up by some crazy scientist, then I have some flashback about an ice cream cone, then I wake up in a hospital bed. I don't know, it's just weird," she said, shrugging with her one good arm.

Hello Nurse led them into Yakko's room. The nurse that was attending him asked Hello Nurse, "What are you doing in here, with those two kids? They need to get out of here!"

"These are his siblings, and they have a right to know how he's doing," snapped Hello Nurse.

Dot thought that she might completely lose it when she saw Yakko, but she remained strangely calm when she saw her brother. Thank goodness that the covers were pulled over him. He just looked asleep.

"Is it bad?" whispered Dot.

"It is, I saw it," said Wakko. "I saw it happen."

At that point Yakko turned around in bed and slowly opened his eyes. Wakko and Dot looked at him and blinked. Yakko blinked also.

"Where am I?" he finally asked.

"Here," said Wakko.

Yakko laughed weakly. "Thanks for being descriptive."

"You're in a hospital bed," confirmed Dot.

"No duh." Yakko smiled bravely. "Better than being in a coffin." He glanced at his siblings. "You're okay, aren't you, Dot? Clarence didn't hurt you too bad?"

"He did hurt me bad, but he didn't kill me." Dot laughed. "Ha! I told him I was indestructible, and I meant it, too! He can't kill me!"

Yakko grinned. "Yeah, you are indestructible, aren't you? Seems you got out of the deal with just a few broken bones. Did he hurt you, Wakko?"

"Not at all," muttered Wakko. "He almost killed you two and didn't even chip my fingernail."

"You don't have fingernails," pointed out Yakko.

"You can't die, Yakko!" Dot suddenly blurted out.

"Am I really dying?" asked Yakko.

Wakko sighed. "They say that you could go either way. You could live."

"But I could die, too," said Yakko. Then he laughed a very sad, shaky laugh. "I can't die. I'm only eleven. There was so much that I wanted to do with my life… I just realized something."

"What?" asked his siblings.

"If I do live past this, I should live everyday as though it were my last. Life can just be taken from you so quickly. You two remember that." Yakko suddenly laughed loudly. "Jeez! If this is dying, then it stinks. It's turning me into a philosopher! You two wait a little longer before you die, okay? No one my age should be talking like a scholar."

"What all did you want to do?" asked Wakko.

Yakko shrugged. "Travel the world, become a public speaker, and…" He was very quiet. "There is one thing that I can do right here, right now."

"What?" asked Dot.

Yakko sat up in bed. "Hannah? Could you come over here, please?"

Hello Nurse, once again, seemed to be jolted out of her thoughts. Then she said, "Sure," and went over to the side of his bed.

"Sit down," said Yakko gently, patting the side of the bed feebly. Hello Nurse sat down. He looked her in the eyes for a stalled moment. "I'm sorry," he finally said. With great effort, he sat up, leaned in towards her, and kissed her.

Dot just looked surprised. Wakko looked a bit jealous, hoping that someday he would get to kiss a sexy girl too.

Hello Nurse was in shock. _What should I do? He's just like all those other guys, thinking that all I am is some object, although he kisses almost just like…_ Hello Nurse finally started to kiss him back, but by that time he pulled away, looking a little scared.

"I'm really sorry, and I didn't want to violate you, but I didn't want to die never telling you that… I love you."

Hello Nurse just stared at him, open mouthed, and suddenly turned and left the room.

Yakko sighed. "She hates me now. If I live, then she'll never let me talk to her. It'll probably be best if I just die then!"

"What a kiss," said Wakko in awe.

Yakko shrugged. "I feel fine anyway, except I feel weak, and my stomach hurts." He turned to Wakko. "I don't think I'll die, but what do I know? Wakko, if I do die, then you're in charge of Dot, okay? And yourself. I love you."

"I love you too," said Wakko quietly. Yakko then turned to Dot.

"Dot, if I die—"

"Don't say that," interrupted Dot. "You can't die."

Yakko looked almost angry. "Dot, let me talk! I don't think I'll die just yet, but I don't want to take any chances. I love you, and… I'm sorry I wasn't able to take better care of you." He smiled at her weakly. "Sweet baby sister," he finished gently.

"I love you too," murmured Dot. She turned her head so that he wouldn't see her crying.


	13. Tying Up Lose Ends

(Author's Note: The last chapter! Looking back on this story, I think that it's the best story I've ever written. But that what I think every time I write a story; I must get better every time. And I've really had a lot of fun writing it. I don't think that I've ever written something this deep. (Yes, I do write really stupid stuff. Just read my Blue's Clues story, Blue's Revenge!) I might write a sequel, I might not, it all depends on if I feel like it and if you beg me to. Alright, I'll stop.)

The doctors thought Yakko would die; Yakko thought he would live. Thankfully, Yakko turned out to be right. Both he and Dot made full, quick recoveries and were soon released from the hospital.

Victor only hung around long enough to make sure that the siblings were okay.

"You could stay here," offered Yakko. "You're basically like our father. You could live with us in our water tower."

"I'd like to," admitted Victor. "But I've got work to do." He turned and looked at Dot, still in her wheelchair, but looking as feisty as ever.

"It's all your fault," she accused, "that I'm so aggressive."

"Well, sometimes that might be a bad thing, but it can also be a good thing," said Victor. He stooped down to hug Dot, and she found herself hugging him back with her one good arm. "I'll miss you."

"You just watch Animaniacs to see how we're doing," said Dot.

"Well then, I'll see you soon," said Victor with a smile.

"Yeah," said Dot, smiling.

Victor then turned to Wakko. "So you didn't end up an only child after all!" said Victor.

"Nope!" said Wakko. "I'm glad of that too; my life would've been really boring."

"Wakko, with you, nothing is boring. I'll see you in your show."

"Yeah, you write, okay?" Wakko smiled at him gratefully. "Come on, Dot," he said, taking his baby sister's hand. "Let's give Victor some time alone with Yakko."

"Race ya back to the water tower!" challenged Dot.

"Yeah right, with you in your wheelch—HEY! Wait up!" Dot, in her power wheelchair, had already zoomed off. Wakko sprinted to catch up with her.

Laughing, Victor and Yakko finally faced each other.

"So what ever happened to Steve?" asked Yakko.

"I don't know," admitted Victor. "I haven't seen him since Clarence fired us, and that was seven going on eight years ago. That would make you eleven, right?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but you did a wonderful job of raising your siblings."

"Thanks." Yakko smiled weakly—_this is what happens every time to meet a new father figure,_ he thought to himself. "You make sure you come and visit us, okay?"

"Right. I'll see you soon, Yakko."

"If you want it to sound professional, you could just add a last name."

"What? McCall?"

"No way. It's Warner."

"Hmmm, Yakko Warner. I like that better than Worthless Chatterbox McCall."

"Me too," said Yakko, ginning.

"See you soon, Yakko Warner."

"Bye!" said Yakko. Victor got into his car and left, and just like that, he was gone.

…………

"Yakko! Could you take zese paper to ze main office, please?"

"No problem. I would be delighted to be your servant. Just as long as you tip me," said Yakko, as Scratchy handed him a stack of papers. Yakko turned around to his siblings. "You can just go up to the tower without me. I'll be there in a little bit."

"I challenge you to a rematch, oh wheelchair-bound one," said Wakko, rolling his eyes.

"The chances of you winning are just the same as last time!" laughed Dot, zooming off again. Wakko scrambled after her.

Yakko took his papers down to the main office, and who was sitting at the desk but Hello Nurse. Yakko stopped dead in his tracks. Lord, she was beautiful.

Oh wait. His cue!

"Helloooooooo Nurse!" cried Yakko, apparently startling her.

"Oh! Helloooooooooooo Yakko!" she said in return.

"Hey, HN, do you know where I'm supposed to put these?"

Hello Nurse took the pictures at Yakko, not smiling at him or even looking at him. "Oh, these were the papers I was expecting. Thank you."

_It sounds like she's trying to avoid confronting me,_ thought Yakko. Then he knew.

"I'm sorry about what I did to you," he said hurriedly. "I should never have kissed you, I mean, I know that you don't love me back, and I obviously wasn't thinking about your own—"

"Yakko, can you ever be quiet?" She didn't say it playfully, like she often did. It sounded harsh this time.

Yakko looked at the ground meekly. Finally he whispered, "Sorry."

Hello Nurse shuffled some papers for a bit. Suddenly she set, almost slammed, them down. "No, I'm sorry, Yakko. I shouldn't yell at you like that. How could you know what I've been through?"

Yakko pulled up a chair and sat next to her. "What have you been through?" he asked.

"A lot. I… I've never told anyone." She laughed suddenly. "But compared to what you've been through, my life is just a walk in the park!"

"Oh yeah? Try me," said Yakko, grinning roguishly.

Hello Nurse sighed. "When I was about your age, I fell in love with this wonderful man named Tom. Now, even back then I was considered a sex object. I was when I was a preeschooler. All of my male classmates had huge crushes on me! Why? Because I was sexy. But I got to know Tom, and he liked me for who I was. Pretty soon he was in love with me… for my mind! We were a couple for three years, four months, and twenty-one days… not that I was counting."

Yakko laughed. "Sure."

"Anyway, at that day, Tom moved away. He told me, though, that he would always love me and we'd always be together. A couple months after he left I was feeling lonesome, so I decided to go visit him, since my family was visiting his town. And by some huge coincidence, the first sight of him that I had had in three months was him making out with some other girl. I left, and never saw him again."

Hello Nurse was waiting for Yakko to say something like, "Don't you think that was a little harsh?" but instead he said, "Well, out of sight, out of mind, as they say. It's the sad truth."

Hello Nurse continued. "Well, I got through school somehow, amid all these fake relationships. Relationships with people who loved me just for what I looked like and once the next pretty girl came around I was history. That, of course, was after I had fallen in love with them. I wanted to be a nurse, and I got teased a lot because of that because my last name is Nurse. But I am intelligent, although some people don't seem to realize it. So I graduated from high school when I was sixteen."

"You're kidding!" cried Yakko.

"No, I'm not," said Hello Nurse. "I got out of college and medical school very quickly."

"So how old are you?"

"I'm twenty-two."

"No way! I'm only half your age! I thought that you were at least thirty!" Yakko smiled. "That means courting you isn't _quite _as scandalous as I had originally thought."

"But by the time I got into medical school, I had dated and fell in love with countless men, and they all used me. They didn't rape me or anything, but they just used me to get more popular and all that stuff. So when I started medical school, I decided that I would never date men again, or even be interested in them. It would never work out between us anyway, Yakko. I mean, you're eleven years younger than me!"

"That didn't stop me," said Yakko with a shrug, "but I see what you mean. You'd be a cradle robber." He sighed. "It's kinda too late now."

"For what?"

"For me not to be interested in you. I mean, maybe I'll eventually fall out of love with you, but…"

Hello Nurse sighed and looked out of the window. It was about 9:30 and since it was September, the sky was already dark. "You know a lot about many things, Yakko, but what do you know about romance?"

"Nothing at all," said Yakko. "I mean, when I was nine I said that I'd never fall in love. That was after Wakko and Dot informed me that some girl we were just talking with me had a crush on me. I guess it was just puppy love, but I didn't want to get involved."

Hello Nurse sighed. "I wish I were brave like you."

"Brave?" snorted Yakko. "You won't think I'm brave when I tell you this. There was this prolonged period when I was eight when I could find no food for us. Finally, one day, I saw some other kid making sandwiches and he had one extra piece, so I asked if I could have it. He said yes, and gave it to me. Now this was only one piece of bread, and Wakko and Dot were starving, so I only divided it in half, so they would have more food than if I would have divided it into thirds. So I found them and gave them their food. And they were about to start eating it when Wakko asked, 'Where's yours, Yakko?' And I said, 'I already had some. I ate it on the way here.' And Wakko said, 'No you didn't, don't lie.' Then Dot came up to me and gave me her whole half piece of bread and said that she wasn't going to let me leave until I ate it."

"I think that you were very brave in that situation!" cried Hello Nurse.

"I was scared stiff! Not only for myself, but also for Wakko and Dot. They needed it more than I did. I could have gone on longer…"

"Yakko, you can be brave and scared at the same time. And you did a very good job of—"

"Raising my siblings, I know. That's what everyone tells me."

"Really, Yakko. You hear about kids being abused, neglected, and abandoned, and all that happened to you and your siblings. They grow up moody, depressed, violent, they use drugs… but Wakko and Dot are very good humored, charming, happy, and well mannered. And so are you."

Yakko looked up into her large, warm blue eyes that looked rather distant tonight. Lord, he could get lost in those eyes, any time, anywhere.

_Stop it, stop it! She's not interested in you, remember?_

"I'd better go," he said hastily, standing up and heading towards the door. But before he was about to leave, he turned around and gave Hello Nurse a tender smile. "I love you for your mind," he said simply.

Hello Nurse stood with her mouth open for a while, then found the courage to speak.

"Yakko?"

He spun around. "Yes?"

Hello Nurse was taken aback by those dark eyes filled with love and emotion that he couldn't possibly hide. He was only eleven, but he was very handsome. When he got older, he would be someone every girl would swoon over…

She quickly gathered herself and said, "If you're not busy tomorrow… would you like to have a picnic? You know, over at that park a couple of blocks south from here."

Yakko looked at her, puzzled. _What game is she playing?_ he thought.

"My dear, you know I would be honored," said Yakko, giving her an elegant bow. "Tomorrow at noon, I'll bring the food, you bring the blanket." Giving her one last smile, he turned and left.

…………

"What's taking Yakko so long?" said Dot angrily, fiddling with Yakko's paddle ball.

"I don't know," said Wakko, who was lounging on the couch. "But whatever it is, he'd better have a good reason."

Dot launched into a near perfect imitation of Yakko. "'You can just go up to the tower without me. I'll be there in a little bit.' Hah! What a joke!"

"How can you remember his exact words?"

"I just can."

"He's probably making out with Hello Nurse or something."

"Yeah," Dot giggled. She made her voice very high-pitched. "Oh, Yakko, kiss me, you fool!"

Wakko laughed and grabbed a throw pillow from the couch. He then leaned down with it and brought it very close to his face. "Why of course, my darling Hannah! Let my lips fall upon yours! Your love is not unrequited!" He then kissed the pillow. Dot shrieked with laughter.

"Jeez, Wakko, you never told me that you had a thing for pillows."

"Aauuggh!" cried Wakko, hearing Yakko's voice. He quickly threw the pillow behind him. "Hello, Yakko!" He winced when he heard the pillow break something.

Dot glared up at Yakko. "Where were you?"

"I was delivering the papers."

"Yeah, and a couple of kisses!"

Yakko sighed. "You guys just don't understand, do you? You don't understand why Hannah is the way she is."

"Oooohhhhhh…" said Wakko. "I think I understand now. She's kinda had bad experiences with men, hasn't she?"

"Yeah, she's been in like twenty relationships and not one of them has worked out. Only one of those guys really loved her, but when he moved his love for her just died."

Dot frowned. "That's kinda sad."

"Yeah, and what also is going to be sad is what I'm gonna do to you two if you don't get in bed _THIS INSTANT_!" said Yakko.

"Yes, _Dad_," both Wakko and Dot said in unison. Yakko burst out with laughter.

"I'll go to bed now, on one condition," said Dot primly.

Yakko put his hands on his hips. "And what would that be?" he asked.

Dot giggled. "That you read me a bedtime story."

"Ooh, I wanna hear it too!" cried Wakko.

Yakko faked a tired sigh. "Very well, very well." He pulled a book out of the shelf and sat down on the edge of the couch, with Wakko on one side and Dot in her wheelchair on the other. He put his arms around them and gave them quick hugs before opening up the book.

"Once upon a time…"


End file.
